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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jun 1999, 374 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2000, 416 pages
The re-creation of a legendary magic trick goes horribly awry on live television - a terrible accident, everyone agrees. But two people know it is not.
From the very first, Carol O'Connell's novels have won extraordinary praise.
"O'Connell has raised the standard for psychological thrillers over the last four
years," said the Chicago Tribune, and Booklist stated bluntly of Judas Child,
"Few readers will be able to resist the charms of her lyrical prose, and anyone
unmoved by the soul-shattering climax should give up reading fiction altogether."
In Shell Game, she raises the standard once again. It is fall in New York City. The
re-creation of a legendary magic trick goes horribly awry on live television--a terrible
accident, everyone agrees. But two people know it is not. One is an aged magician in a
private hospital in the northern corner of New York state. What a worthy performance, he
thinks, murdering a man while a million people watch.
The other is Kathleen Mallory. Once a feral child, loose on the city streets, she is
now a New York City policewoman, and not much changed--a tall young woman with green
gunslinger eyes and a ferocious inner compass of right and wrong. For her, the death is
too dramatic, too showy, and she is convinced that it will happen again--this perp loves
spectacle. But even she cannot predict the spectacular chain of events that has already
been set in motion, or the profoundly disturbing consequences it will have for those she
holds most dear. For misdirection is the heart of magic. The lady never really gets sawed
in half, does she?
So why is there so much blood?
Filled with the rich prose, resonant characters and knife-edge suspense that have won
her so many admirers, Shell Game is Carol O'Connell's most remarkable novel yet.
Prologue
The old man kept pace with him, then ran ahead in a sudden burst of energy and fear-as
if he loved Louisa more. Man and boy raced toward the scream, a long high note, a shriek
without pause for breath, inhuman in its constancy.
Malakhai's entire body awoke in violent spasms of flailing arms and churning legs,
running naked into the real and solid world of his bed and its tangle of damp sheets.
Rising quickly in the dark, he knocked over a small table, sending a clock to the floor,
shattering its glass face and killing the alarm.
Cold air rushed across his bare feet to push open the door. By the light of a wall
sconce in the outer hallway, he cast a shadow on the bedroom floor and revolved in a slow
turn, not recognizing any of the furnishings. A long black robe lay across the arms of a
chair. Shivering, he picked up the unfamiliar garment and pulled it across his shoulders
like a cape.
A window sash had been ...
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