Dead Famous

Rating:
Summary: Savored every page of this book
Review: Carol O'Connell's writing is wonderful, with vivid descriptions and delicious sentences and metaphors. Despite that, I found the plot (plots?) choppy, and the book overall schizophrenic. The book shifts focus too many times, from Riker and Johanna, to Mallory, to psychological descriptions on various characters' craziness. It began with a creepy-seeming emphasis on Johanna's physical characteristics, but the creepy tone was dropped almost immediately and her deformity was not important, so I'm not at all sure why it was even in there. The end - or the last half or third - was pretty drawn out and really bounced around a lot. It'd be interesting to try to outline this book, using color-coding to note the focus and tone - I think that would show how disjointed it is. It almost seems like parts were written by different authors, or like O'Connell was experiencing very different moods as she wrote it, and never went back to try to reconcile the different sections. Read it anyway, because I think Riker's development in this book may be important to the next book.

Rating:
Summary: Dead Right!
Review: I just "discovered" Carol O'Connell and right off the mark she is on my top 10 list of mystrey writers. If you love Elizabeth George, P. D. James, Ruth Rendell, Ray Bradbury - great stories with 3-D characters in complete worlds with believable dialog and understandable motivation - then do yourself a favor and hook yourself up with Dead Famous. I can't wait to see this adapted for TV (as long as Will Smith has NOTHING to do with the project!) Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: O'Connor does it again!
Review: I never know what to expect from O'Connor's mysteries, except for one fact. They are not like anything I've ever read before. I think part of the reason I love her work, is because I studied neuroscience for six years, specifically on the brain. Her mysteries are psychological mysteries, ones that deal with people on both the good and bad sides, whose flaws are almost too obvious. Yet, each person within her books has psychological short-comings...even the so-called normal ones (and those are few). This book center around Riker, Mallory's sidekick and mentor, who is undergoing massive trauma due to a near-death experience. He refuses to recognize his needs (sounds like Mallory), so Mallory tries a little shock treatment on him...which backfires on her.

O'Connor characters are the best things about her books. They are rich and they are deep, her characters have flaws, but most of them (not the criminals) have tangible good points about them. In this book, Riker meets a woman who helps to restore his damage psyche who is physically imperfect, and I think O'Connor dealt with this problem of being visually imperfect in a society that demands perfection with just the right touch.

The plot is very convoluted to say the least. O'Connor tends to have several intertwining plots going on a once, and I guess some people will find it very difficult to keep these plots separate in their minds. Me, I have come to expect this from O'Connor, and I enjoy trying to make sense of all of the twists. As usual, I cannot wait until the next Mallory book!

Karen Sadler

Rating:
Summary: Calling all Riker fans
Review: If you wondered about riker and wanted to know the deal this is the book for you.It is the usual can't put it down until I am done Though this one will make you cry but in the end you welcome Riker into the family even more

Rating:
Summary: Unsatisfying
Review: Kathleen Mallory is a splendid, complex character any writer would love to develop stories around. I would _love_ to read more about her. Think of the possibilities! Kathy with a girl friend her own age, with a boyfriend, confounded by things she doesn't understand, progressing in her journey to humanity. This book has the possibilities, the hint of such a story: Kathleen the sociopath vs another sociopath. Unfortunately, we get only glimpses of what might have been. In fact, we get little more than glimpses of Kathleen.

This is the kind of story an editor loves, the kind of writing literature professors use as examples of fine prose. O'Connell's writing is top notch, as always, written with beautiful form. Unfortunately, it's like she's playing to those who admire the way you tell a story, rather than the story. So she neglects the substance for the style.

The story is complex, as is usual for the Mallory series, but spends far more time on secondary characters, and FAR too much time on their various neuroses and phsychological defects. This entire book is about psychological problems. It seems, at times, that we go from exploring one person's traumas to another's insanity, and spend a lot of time with one character or other talking about or thinking about this.

The actual mystery, the supposed major plot line, is secondary. And not all that important, anyway. This book is about psychological trauma and insanity, not murder. It starts out with Ryker traumatized and broken, and Mallory unhappy, and pretty much ends up that way. Along the journey a mystery clears itself up with little help from Mallory or Ryker and not very much suspense of tension - and certainly very little action. The ending is telegraphed, drawn out, anti-climactic, and wholly unsatisfying.

I read O'Connell's previous Mallory novels cover to cover, loving the emotional elements of a fine and beautiful character. This one I put down for days at a time, bored. If you're a literature student and want to admire fine writing, get this book. If you want entertainment, however, look elsewhere. O'Connell's intent here appears to be on something other than satisfying her readers.

Rating:
Summary: not the usual
Review: No need to re-cap the storyline; that's available elsewhere. But I feel a warning is necessary. A line on the cover labels this "A Mallory Novel." But you'll be half-way through the book before FAMOUS becomes a Mallory novel. It concentrates on her partner Riker and another character, Johanna Apollo for fully half the book; Mallory is barely a supporting character. If you can tolerate that, you'll enjoy FAMOUS. In addition to an intricate story, it offers new insight into Mallory's relationship to her partner, Riker. "Sociopath" Mallory is gradually learning how to be normal, as this novel shows. But she still has a long way to go, which is fortunate for those of us who love this non-standard issue heroine. Author O'Connell has created something truly unique here, and more readers should be aware of it. But FAMOUS is not the place for newcomers to start.

Rating:
Summary: O'Connell's Best Mallory book EVER!
Review: This is ellen in atlanta and have stayed with the Mallory series through thick and thin - and can only tell you that this book is the BEST of the series and if Carol backpedals to mediocrity, I'll do something Mallory-like and tear up the book - yeah, right...
This book focuses on Riker, Mallory's partner, and as close to a friend as the impaired Mallory can get - Enter a hunchback, a beautiful and sensitive person on Riker's brother's crime cleaning service who is not who she seems - It is riviting and touching and I am proud of the jump in writing that occured in this book.
Am also glad that the book lessens on Charles' unrequited love for Mallory - he is a wonderful character and deserves a love interest who will be worthy - maybe shaking Mallory into seeing what she's missing??? yeah, right.
For Mallory fans, a must read book. For novices, a good time to jump in and connect. For series, I generally suggest to buy back issues and 'catch up', but in the case of O'Connell, use your judgement -
But the ending is worth the price of the book. And more's the pity that Mallory doesn't get the gravestone's message.

Rating:
Summary: Can't ask for much more.
Review: Twelve jurors declare an accused murderer innocent, much to the public's disbelief and disgust. Someone has taken it so personally that they're picking off all the members of that jury, one by one. Shock radio jock Ian Zachary has cashed in on the public's ghoulish interest with the case, earning his show some super ratings and the kind of publicity that you couldn't ever pay for. His ongoing game of "spot the juror" may get a lot of people killed as the killer tagged as "The Reaper" goes along his merry, murderous way - but in Zachary's own opinion, the public and everyone else is really only there to serve him, in any way that the egomaniac sees fit.

Not entirely sure whether the NYPD still has him in their employ or not, Detective Sgt. Riker spends the down hours managing a family business that gets him just as close to the evils that men and women can inflict on one another. His specialist cleaning business takes away some of the horror by removing all the blood and gore and getting the client's house or place of business looking again pretty much the way it did before someone decided to commit a murder in it.

Riker's former partner Kathy Mallory takes a personal offense in Riker's reluctance to return to the force; in particular as she disregards personal hurt once the obvious physical scars have healed. Four bullets to the chest may have taken Riker down, but Mallory refuses to let that take him out of her world. As the Reaper gets closer to eliminating the last of the twelve, Riker is drawn into the chase for very personal reasons. One of those jurors is someone who has become very dear to him.

"Dead Famous" is not the thriller that it might sound - the killer hunting down a jury who delivered a verdict he violently disagreed with. O'Connell's considerable talent is displayed here with the interaction of her characters and in particular the voice of Johanna Apollo, one of the jurors. Some of the drama veers close to the sob of melodrama but fortunately never crosses that line. It's disturbing to hear how O'Connell refers to the character of Apollo repeatedly as a "hunchback" (the character has a spinal deformity) but if she is attempting to harden the reader to her fictional world of New York, she succeeds. "Dead Famous" is the seventh novel in the Kathy Mallory series (also titled "The Jury Must Die" in other print editions), and features less of this female character as her lead in this book. The intensity never lets up in this read, and those emotional punches just keep coming out one after the other.


Rating:
Summary: Characters and Crime - Who could ask for more?
Review: Upon first getting into this book I was a little frustrated that it went back and forth between characters so much and also that Mallory was only lightly involved. However, as I continued reading it sucked me in deeper and deeper and I got with the flow. Having finished it, I think it's one of my favorite Mallory books, even though the story focuses largely on her partner, Riker. The ending is very poignant, though to say more would be to give it away. Mallory herself is an acquired taste, one that people either tend to love or hate. I like her, as a character and as a cop, though I don't know that I'd like to have a beer with her. I am currently 3/4 of the way through the newest Mallory book, "Winter House," which is good and has more of Mallory in it. But I have to say that I would probably give it four stars, whereas I'm giving "Dead Famous" five.