Blind Sight

July 18, 2016
Rampant rumors suggest that Andrew Polk, a Wall Street wheeler-dealer turned New York City mayor, has plenty of skeletons in the closet, but what these might have to do with the four mutilated corpses dumped outside Gracie Mansion, his official residence, lies at the heart of bestseller O’Connell’s affecting, fast-moving, but labyrinthine 12th thriller featuring NYPD Det. Kathy Mallory (after 2013’s It Happens in the Dark). Although the inscrutable, cyborg-chilly Mallory headlines the show, most of the novel’s emotional pull stems from blind 12-year-old kidnap victim Jonah Quill, whose tiny hope of survival may hinge on his own considerable wits. As Det. Kathy Mallory and police partner Riker wrestle with the sprawling case as well as stonewalling from both the mayor and the Catholic Church—one of the dead, Jonah’s aunt, was a young cloistered nun—the feisty, fiercely independent boy struggles to connect with his stone-cold captor long enough to figure out an exit strategy. In contrast to this gripping life-and-death drama, the larger plot is excessively convoluted and capricious.

O'Connell sets up a compelling storyline, and narrator Barbara Rosenblat draws listeners in, keeping them hooked from her very first words. NYPD Special Crimes Unit detective Kathy Mallory, a no-nonsense woman who appears cold and occasionally twisted, investigates the kidnapping of a nun and a 12-year-old blind boy. Before the kidnappings, four bodies were dropped on the mayor's lawn at Gracie Mansion, their hearts having been surgically removed. Rosenblat makes each character identifiable and completely credible--from Mallory's partner, Riker, to the hit man, Iggy; from the nun, Angela, to the blind boy, Jonah. Distracting sounds of Rosenblat's swallowing and breathing aren't edited out and tend to be intrusive, but, otherwise, this well-plotted mystery and Rosenblat's top-notch performance are well worth hearing. S.J.H. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine