Crime School

Over the course of six novels, Carol O'Connell has become one of our most acclaimed writers of suspense. Her heroine, Kathy Mallory, is "stunningly unique" ("Milwaukee Journal Sentinel"). "O'Connell conjures up a world of almost Faulkerian richness and complexity," said "People," and the "Chicago Tribune" wrote simply, "O'Connell has raised the standard for psychological thrillers." A wild child turned New York City policewoman, Mallory was adopted off the streets as a small girl. Very little has ever really been known about what happened to her back then, how she lived-but the past is about to come alive. "Crime School" begins with the discovery of a woman found hanging in a burning apartment, tufts of her own blond hair stuck in her mouth and red candles scattered all around. Immediately, Mallory knows several things. The fire was set so the woman would be discovered. The crime is identical to another one twenty years old. And she knows this woman. She is a prostitute named Sparrow, who took her in all those many years ago, and then betrayed her. There is unfinished business between Mallory and Sparrow, and the quest to settle it will send her spinning back to a time of secrets and desperation, and into the mind of a criminal whose work has only just begun.