Mary P. (mary2029) - , reviewed on 1/12/2018 + 35 more book reviews

Winter House by Carol O'Connell, features Kathy Mallory, a police detective who is described as a sociopath. If you've seen the Sherlock television series with Benedict Cumberbatch you know what's meant. Still, she's loved by her detective partner Riker, her business partner Charles Butler, and an assortment of other regulars. O'Connell writes with biting wit about Mallory. When she's found asleep in his desk chair, the chief medical examiner thinks to himself, "Well, this put a lie to Detective Riker's theory that she slept hanging by her heels like a bat." When she woke up, "Her eyes snapped open in the mechanical fashion of a doll--or a robot.... This leant credence to his own theory that she had an on-off switch." The back cover of the book describes it as a cross between a modern gothic and a police procedural. Certainly, the characters who live in Winter House, where the dead body of a supposed burglar is found, are a pretty gothic group. To call them a dysfunctional family is downright insulting to the term. O'Connell is a master of character. I've enjoyed all her books, and in this one she's at the top of her game.

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