Crime School
Putnam
Mystery
September 1, 2002
ISBN-13: 0399148287
Available in: Hardcover
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Crime School
by Carol O'Connell
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.
Other Books by Carol O'Connell
Carol O'Connell's Bio
Born in 1947, Carol O'Connell studied at the California Institute or Arts/Chouinard and the Arizona State University. For many years she survived on occasional sales of her paintings as well as freelance proof-reading and copy-editing.
At the age of 46, Carol O'Connell sent the manuscript of Mallory's Oracle to Hutchinson, because she felt that a British publisher would be sympathetic to a first time novelist and because Hutchinson also publish Ruth Rendell. Having miraculously found the book on the 'slush pile', Hutchinson immediately came back with an offer for world rights, not just for, Mallory's Oracle but for the second book featuring the same captivating heroine.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Hutchinson sold the rights to Dutch, French and German publishers for six figure sums. Mallory's Oracle was then taken back to the States where it was sold, at auction, to Putnam for over $800,000.
Carol O'Connell is now writing full time.