ISBN: 0-515-11647-5 Order from: Amazon.com
A slick, dark, police procedural, with a melodramatically attractive and capable heroine, a twisting plot, and enough fast and cynical action to hold the reader's attention.
Reviewed by David on August 01, 1999
Genre: Mystery (Police Procedural)
Synopsis: Years ago, Markowitz, a veteran New York police detective has adopted a 10-year-old thief off the streets. Now, Kathy Mallory has grown up into a beautiful, amoral thief. However, in deference to her father, her larcenious talents have been bent towards law enforcement. A young detective herself, Kathy was one of the first on the scene when Louis Markowitz, her adopted father.
Nobody has ever seen Mallory cry, and she has scoffed at hints of love or affection. However, cold anger comes to her easily. Now, Kathy's ruthless pursuit of her father's killer will not be hampered by morality, law or friendship.
Full Review: The book features fast action, hints of foreshadowing, and grim, almost macabre details of big city crime. However, the mani fasctination os the Kathy Mallory herself, blond, beautiful, almost impossibly capable and disdainful of any human emotion. The quintessential ice queen, too melodramatic by half, nevertheless, exhibits small hints of childishly suppressed vulnurability, to increase the reader's sympathy.
On the whole, this scheme succeeds, despite the overtly tear-jerker methods, and Kathy, and her exasperated entourage of besotted, concerned and occasionally terrified friends who love her despite herself, hold enough fascination and suspense to keep one reading late into the night.
Overall: 6; Plot: 5; Characters: 6; Style: 6; World-building: 5; Originality: 5.5;
Copyright date 1994, Berkley Publishing Group (Jove), June 1995, Mass market paperback, 310 pages
ISBN: 0-515-11647-5 Order from: Amazon.com