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This book is an essential guide for anyone who wants an inside look at the social work profession. Whether you are a social work graduate student or undergraduate student, an experienced professional wishing to make a change in career direction, or just thinking about going into the field, you will learn valuable lessons from the experiences described in DAYS IN THE LIVES OF SOCIAL WORKERS.
54. Mallory's Oracle...Carol O'Connell
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Serial killing, insider trading, the occult and the vices of wealthy Manhattan widows are the themes that collide in this heavy-handed first novel starring an unusual policewoman. Kathleen Mallory was an 11-year-old thief living on the streets of New York City when Detective Louis Markowitz rescued her and raised her in his home. The novel opens a decade later when Markowitz, a widower, is found dead beside the third in a series of Gramercy Park dowagers slashed and murdered in broad daylight. Mallory, whose early criminal instincts and keen intelligence have been loosely channeled into computer science, is forced to take a leave from the department and decides to seek vengeance on her own.
55. The Man Who Cast Two Shadows...Carol O'Connell
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O'Connell's second novel (after Mallory's Oracle) brings back NYPD Sergeant Kathy Mallory, plunging this tough-minded yet soulful heroine into another convoluted case. When a woman killed in Central Park is mistakenly identified as Mallory, the former street urchin and computer whiz sets herself up as bait by moving into the apartment building that houses her three main suspects. Using a computer and the building's electronic bulletin board to psych out the killer, she stirs up more than she bargained for, including someone who wants her dead. Other elements in the intelligent plot include a crime of passion, a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game and a boy who may be telekinetic and whose stepmothers keep dying.
56. Killing Critics...Carol O'Connell
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O'Connell's driven and sharp-edged NYPD detective Kathleen Mallory revisits a 12-year-old double murder case first investigated by her beloved adoptive father, whose death was central to her notable debut in Mallory's Oracle (1994). The murder of a second-rate performance artist in mid-performance has many associations to the earlier, grisly and still unsolved homicides, which also touched the art world. Many of the same characters are involved in both killings: J.L. Quinn, the elegantly icy critic whose niece was one of the first victims; Avril Koozeman, whose galleries were murder scenes then and now; and Emma Sue Halloran, once a critic, now a culturecrat who forces hideous art into new buildings. Mallory and her partner, Sergeant Riker, must find keys to the new killing by prying memories from these witnesses. Hampering their efforts is the desire of the police brass to keep the old case closed. O'Connell's narrative force and character development are irresistible. Although the intense and private Mallory offers little to love until late in the story, her fierce determination draws the reader into her quest. Wacky artsy types and a flawed but sympathetic Riker leaven the heavy dose of misanthropy.
57. Stone Angel...Carol O'Connell
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Much darker than the previous three novels starring Mallory, Stone Angel examines the shadows that haunt this unique detective, bringing to light the horrors that drive her. Here she is seeking retribution with single-minded obsession for her mother's grisly death by stoning. The small Louisiana town she fled as a child and to which she now returns is polluted with enough moral corruption to make Faulkner proud. Fans of the earlier books will be gratified to know that old friends have followed Mallory to Louisiana. Charles has spent months tracking her, dogging her steps with a fiercely loyal determination. Detective Riker has found her as well, and the relationship among these three continues to develop as the men try to keep her from destroying herself while seeking revenge. O'Connell is at her best when she is characterizing the almost animalistic Mallory, and she has outdone herself here, deftly weaving together threads of character and subplots from all four novels to reveal Mallory's true motives.Great new author (to me...she's been out for a while.)
58. Judas Child...Carol O'Connell
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In a departure from her popular Kathleen Mallory suspense series (most recently Stone Angel), O'Connell's chilling tale of a murderer who preys on children compensates for a muddled plot with its clear-eyed look at the heights and depths of human behavior. When two remarkable fifth-grade girls, Gwen Hubble, the beautiful daughter of the lieutenant governor, and Sadie Green, an imaginative and plucky child obsessed with horror comics and movies, are kidnapped from the St. Ursula's Academy, two adults afflicted by their own tragedies are drawn into the investigation. Forensic psychologist Ali Cray draws stares both for her slit skirts and for a disfiguring facial scar, the result of a secret childhood trauma. Policeman Rouge Kendall is haunted by the memory of his twin sister's murder 15 years earlier. The killer was supposedly caught, but similarities between the old murder and the current case make Cray begin to doubt. In the earlier case, the killer used a note from one captured child (the Judas child) to lure a friend; the reader knows that this is again the pattern, just as we know, or think we know, where the girls are being held. As the investigation continues and the girls attempt to escape, O'Connell introduces vivid minor characters, including a 10-year-old boy almost too shy to speak and one of Cray's ex-lovers, a cop who expresses his thwarted yearning for her through insult contests.
Really enjoyed this one! It is a stand-alone from the same author as the Mallory series, so it has a very similar writing style. Great twist at the end...did not see it coming!
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