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A review by jason_as
It Happens in the Dark by Carol O'Connell
2.0
Well, it works relatively well as a mystery investigation but…I don’t see the point of this being an installment in the Mallory series. The main characters have no progression at all, hitting the exact same beats that they have in the past…and frankly it feels like this book should be more like #2 or so. Past books actually have had character development via emotional revelations and life changes and such, but this book doesn’t seem to take into account any of the last ten. Are we supposed to take it that the characters simply regress and forget stuff like that, or be forced to fanwank that “hey, maybe the series isn’t in order” to justify the suck characterization? All you can glean is pretty much the basics laid out since the beginning: Mallory is a beautiful computer genius whose coldness/apparent lack of emotions scares people and helps make her such a great cop, her partner Riker is a drunk and fallen from greater heights in the hierarchy because of that, her somewhat obsessive admirer Charles is a brilliant psychologist. So why bother having them, when any other literary great cop could have solved the case which lacks any especial emotional resonance – both overall and in the context of who Mallory and Riker are as people.
But since O’Connell did make it part of the series, I’m also annoyed that Mallory gets almost no POV. Yes, she will always be on the unknowable side, but it’s just lazy to make her unknowable by barely giving a glimpse into her mind. I don’t mind that there’s not that much more from Charles’s POV as his entire persona here is basically “I love Mallory” – though that is a primary motivation for him, generally he has a lot more complexity than that.
The only character who’s particularly exciting here is Bugsy, who is not one I see very often. He makes me feel the most, and one of the few quotes I bothered to jot down is about him: “And dreamed he was a man.” If a chunk of his parts of the novel were cobbled together into a short story, only then would O’Connell have a work that stands up to what she’s been able to do in the past.
The ending stinks. Which stinks since the ending is usually such a strength in this series – evocative, thought-provoking, emotion-rendering. Here I’m just like “Um, you did this already. And the solution to the mystery is stupid, like who cares?” I have a feeling this is the Mallory novel I will reread the fewest number of times – possibly never.
But since O’Connell did make it part of the series, I’m also annoyed that Mallory gets almost no POV. Yes, she will always be on the unknowable side, but it’s just lazy to make her unknowable by barely giving a glimpse into her mind. I don’t mind that there’s not that much more from Charles’s POV as his entire persona here is basically “I love Mallory” – though that is a primary motivation for him, generally he has a lot more complexity than that.
The only character who’s particularly exciting here is Bugsy, who is not one I see very often. He makes me feel the most, and one of the few quotes I bothered to jot down is about him: “And dreamed he was a man.” If a chunk of his parts of the novel were cobbled together into a short story, only then would O’Connell have a work that stands up to what she’s been able to do in the past.
The ending stinks. Which stinks since the ending is usually such a strength in this series – evocative, thought-provoking, emotion-rendering. Here I’m just like “Um, you did this already. And the solution to the mystery is stupid, like who cares?” I have a feeling this is the Mallory novel I will reread the fewest number of times – possibly never.