Carol O'Connell (born May 26, 1947, in New York [1] ) is an author of crime fiction, including a series of a dozen mysteries featuring a sociopathic but gifted detective, Kathy Mallory.
O'Connell earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Arizona State University and embarked on a career as an artist, writing fiction "in the closet" as a hobby. [1] [2] She grew more interested in writing fiction than in her art career and, after initially having the manuscript for her first book, Mallory's Oracle , turned down by American publishers, she sold publication rights to a British publisher, Hutchinson, with rights auctioned to European publishers. It then was acquired for the U.S. and Canadian markets by Putnam in an $800,000 two-book deal. [3] [4]
NYPD Det. Kathy Mallory
Standalone
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Kogoro Akechi, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Natural Born Killers is a 1994 American romantic crime action film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childhoods who become lovers and mass murderers, and are irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
Edith Mary Pargeter, also known by her pen name Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her translations of Czech classics. She is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern, and especially for her medieval detective series The Cadfael Chronicles.
The historical mystery or historical whodunit is a subgenre of two literary genres, historical fiction and mystery fiction. These works are set in a time period considered historical from the author's perspective, and the central plot involves the solving of a mystery or crime. Though works combining these genres have existed since at least the early 20th century, many credit Ellis Peters's Cadfael Chronicles (1977–1994) for popularizing what would become known as the historical mystery. The increasing popularity and prevalence of this type of fiction in subsequent decades has spawned a distinct subgenre recognized by the publishing industry and libraries. Publishers Weekly noted in 2010 of the genre, "The past decade has seen an explosion in both quantity and quality. Never before have so many historical mysteries been published, by so many gifted writers, and covering such a wide range of times and places." Editor Keith Kahla concurs, "From a small group of writers with a very specialized audience, the historical mystery has become a critically acclaimed, award-winning genre with a toehold on the New York Times bestseller list."
Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand writer.
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.
Sue Taylor Grafton was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist, C. W. Grafton, she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was author Ross Macdonald. Before her success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.
Graham Masterton is a British author known primarily for horror fiction. Originally editor of Mayfair and the British edition of Penthouse, his debut novel, The Manitou, was published in 1976. This novel was adapted in 1978 for the film The Manitou. His 1978 novel Charnel House and 1983 novel Tengu garnered positive critical reception, the former receiving a Special Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America and the latter being awarded with a silver medal by the West Coast Review of Books. Masterton was also the editor of Scare Care, a horror anthology published for the benefit of abused children in Europe and the United States.
Otto Penzler is an American editor of mystery fiction, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.
Dr John Connolly is an Irish writer who is best known for his series of novels starring private detective Charlie Parker.
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter, publisher and producer known for his bestselling novels Lost Hills and True Fiction and his work on a wide variety of TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk.
Kathleen 'Kathy' Mallory is a fictional character featured in eleven mystery novels by author Carol O'Connell. The novels in the series include Mallory's Oracle (1994), The Man Who Cast Two Shadows (1995), Killing Critics (1996), Stone Angel (1997), Shell Game (1999), Crime School (2002), Dead Famous (2003), Winter House (2004), Find Me, The Chalk Girl (2012), and It Happens In The Dark (2013).
Mallory's Oracle is the first novel in the Kathy Mallory series by author Carol O'Connell. The book was nominated for an Edgar Award and a Dilys Award. It was first published by Hutchinson in May 1994 in the UK, then in August that year by Putnam in the US.
Karl Stig-Erland "Stieg" Larsson was a Swedish writer, journalist, and activist. He is best known for writing the Millennium trilogy of crime novels, which were published posthumously, starting in 2005, after he died of a sudden heart attack. The trilogy was adapted as three motion pictures in Sweden, and one in the U.S.. The publisher commissioned David Lagercrantz to write the next trilogy, and Karin Smirnoff to write the third trilogy in the series, which has seven novels as of September 2024. For much of his life, Larsson lived and worked in Stockholm. His journalistic work covered socialist politics and he acted as an independent researcher of right-wing extremism.
Les Standiford is an author and, since 1985, the Founding Director of the Florida International University Creative Writing Program in Miami, Florida. He also holds the Peter Meinke Chair in Creative Writing at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. His most recent books have been narrative non-fiction historical works. His novels featuring the character "John Deal" put him in the Miami School of crime fiction, whose progenitors are Charles Willeford and John D. MacDonald, and which includes Elmore Leonard, Jeff Lindsay, Carl Hiaasen, James W. Hall, Paul Levine, Edna Buchanan, and Barbara Parker.
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the convention since 1986. This page details Bouchercon XXVI and the 10th Anthony Awards ceremony.
Indemnity Only is a mystery novel written by Sara Paretsky.
Barbara Rosenblat is a British actress. She is best known as a prolific narrator of audiobooks, for which AudioFile named her a Golden Voice. She has also appeared on screen such as in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black as the character Miss Rosa.
Suzanne North is a Canadian author based out of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Sylvia Haymon was a British writer of mystery fiction, autobiography, and other fiction and nonfiction. As an adult, she worked in public relations, broadcasting, journalism, and farming, and published nonfiction that included two childhood memoirs, a historical novel, biographies of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Monmouth, and a history of Norwich, her birthplace. Writing under the pseudonym S. T. Haymon, she became well-known for her police procedural series featuring Detective Inspector Ben Jurnet. She won the Crime Writers Association Silver Dagger Award in 1983 for Ritual Murder.