This was a well written book. There was a great story line. If you like a suspense, this is the book. ( )

Crime School is, like Find Me and Dead Famous, a slow starter, but stick with it for a great finish. ( )

NYPD's most beautiful and ruthless detective investigates a series of hanging attacks on women that a duplicate a twenty-year-old murder. Both Mallory and her partner Riker have a personal interest, for one of the victims is a former junkie-prostitute that mothered Mallory when she was a street urchin. Her friend Charles Butler wants to know why Riker removed a pulp western paperback novel from the woman's crime scene, only to discover that the young Mallory had a reading club among working girls. A rookie being tutored by Mallory and Riker apparently is the basis for the title. Or perhaps it refers to young Mallory's own brutal tutelage on the streets.

A good, solid read.

I have an issue with some of the Mallory novels - Shell Game, Crime School, Winter House. O'Connell always provides two endings to her stories, one to the mystery, the other to the emotional conflicts among her regulars. I have noticed that the latter tends to be more satisfying and resonant than the former. In these stories, especially, she provides a plausible culprit but then has said culprit being bluffed into signing confessions that send him or her to jail for good. I didn't believe this the first time O'Connell used it, in Shell Game. I really don't believe it in this case. On the other hand, I nearly teared up at the last scene, when Mallory came to terms with another part of her past. ( )

Of Carol O'Connell's Mallory series that I've read, this and "Stone Angel" have been my faves. Can't put it down. ( )

An outstanding book in an excellent series ( )