This image is the cover for the book Mallory, Mysterious Profiles

Mallory, Mysterious Profiles

The New York Times–bestselling author discusses her crime-solving hacker heroine, “surely one of the genre’s oddest and most interesting creations” (Chicago Tribune).

When the NYPD detective and sociopath known simply as Mallory made her series debut, John Sandford called her “one of the most interesting new characters to come along in years.” A homeless wild child who was taken in by a New York City cop and grew up to follow in his footsteps, she possesses a skill set—including a talent for computer hacking—that allows her to track down her prey like no one else. In this insightful essay, author Carol O’Connell shares fascinating insights about her origins, her psychology, and her strikingly different sense of right and wrong.

“Mallory is not your usual plucky and generally wholesome mystery solver. Jane Marple would probably cross the street to avoid making eye contact with her.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Mallory is a marvelous creation.” —Jonathan Kellerman, New York Times–bestselling author of the Alex Hunter novels

Carol O'Connell

Carol O’Connell was born in New York in 1947, raised in New England and New Jersey, then moved west to study at the California Institute of the Arts. A hippie without an agenda, she edged eastward and completed her studies at Arizona State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. O’Connell then moved to Denver, Colorado, regarding it as a largish halfway house between coasts east and west. After a few years as a papergirl for the Denver Post, she moved on to Manhattan. There, she earned her living as a freelance proofreader while also working at mind-sucking graveyard-shift jobs and doing the starving-artist thing. Upon publication of Mallory’s Oracle, the first of ten novels, she was—in her own words—incredibly overpaid, and this enabled her to quit the rent-money gigs. O’Connell also trashed her alarm clock. Now she goes to bed when she gets tired and wakes up when she’s completely finished sleeping.
 
O’Connell still writes every day.

Open Road Media