Authors - Carol O'Connell

At rummage sale time I successfully increase my store of "to read" pile of books. Last year was no exception. While digging through stacks of blue jeans and perusing the plethora of knickknacks I Winter House by Carol O'Connell lie there anticipating my purchase. Little did I know how much this book would grab hold of me and take me on a grand escape.
happened upon a table full of waiting mysteries. The

The Winter House, published in 2005, is number eight in the Kathy Mallory series that O'Connell began in 1994. An elderly woman searches to find her place within her family after years of a mysterious absence. While she seeks to uncover the mystery of her past, Mallory roots around to solve murders that have happened at the family home aptly named The Winter House. Mallory stars in all of her novels as a slightly off, unemotional character, who has no problem in being a fanatic for getting to the truth without the conscious of who she is hurting. Her redeeming quality finds itself in her friends. A partner detective, a partner in extra money making schemes, and a captain who feels her ends justify their means round out the main cast of characters.They cannot give up on her no matter how difficult she can be.

O'Connell's character Mallory has me as a reader gripped by her impersonal mannerisms and seeing her through her friends' eyes. The author describes her as an extreme beauty with blonde hair. Yet I don't see her that way. Maybe mouse brown hair and really not beautiful but severe. The media has probably been to blame for this since beautiful blondes like Christie Brinkley, Madonna, Reece Witherspoon, and Pamela Anderson don't seem to have a single brain cell in their beautiful heads. My mind then naturally makes Mallory only a "dishwater" blonde. Her partner depicts the typical characterization of a jaded overworked detective, a drunkard who smokes too much. Her partner outside of work stereotypes nerds and eccentrics as well. I have to say though it all works.

As much as O'Connell wanted and studied to be an artist at Arizona State University she eventually lived a few years as a starving writer. Advancing her writing career took sending her first Mallory Manuscript, Mallory's Oracte, to England to be auctioned. Success there and in the US followed, thankfully.

Since that first rummage sale novel I have read Dead Famous, Find Me, The Chalk Girl of the Mallory series. Plus her two stand alone novels The Judas Child and Bone by Bone. All excellent reads. O'Connell's style of writing falls between James Patterson's quickness and Stephen King's wordiness. Listening to part of them and reading hard copy on others makes no difference, they continue to enthrall me.