Publisher's Weekly Review
M is for Mallory-Kathy Mallory, bestseller O'Connell's powerful and powerfully flawed New York Special Crimes Unit detective. M is also for morbid, macabre, and mordant-adjectives that can be applied to the plot, the prose, and the humor of this dazzling 11th novel in the series (after 2012's The Chalk Girl). An audience death on opening night stops Peter Beck's play The Brass Bed, based on the slaughter of a Nebraska family, as does the discovery of Beck's bloody corpse in a front-row seat the next night. Add to the strange mix of cast members a mysterious ghostwriter working on the script who leaves taunting messages for Mallory. Mallory makes startling deductions; manipulates witnesses, suspects, and colleagues unsparingly; humiliates a brash official who tries to grab her case; and draws the smalltown sheriff who investigated the actual slayings to Manhattan. Her bravura performance wreaks justice both inside and outside the legal system. Author tour. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Set in New York City's theater district, this solid entry in O'Connell's long-running series (after The Chalk Girl) follows NYPD detective Kathy Mallory and company as they track clues left by a "ghostwriter" directing changes in a new play: the edits are mysteriously written on the backstage chalkboard, and audience members are turning up dead after each performance. The play becomes a huge success as audiences flock to the theater in hopes of witnessing more murders. Though this dark-humored Mallory novel may be enjoyed as a stand-alone, series devotees will enjoy following the quirky, sad, and complex characters as they interact with the beautiful, brilliant, and merciless detective. Excellent narration by Barbara Rosenblat enhances the characterization and atmosphere of the story. Verdict Fans of Mallory will savor as well the fiercely independent female detectives in series by Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Nevada Barr.-Sandra C. Clariday, Tennessee Wesleyan Coll., Athens (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.