Customer Reviews

The Broken Promise Land (Sharon McCone Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It took me almost a month to get through the previous book in the McCone series, "A Wild and Lonely Place." The characters were so dull, the plot so mechanical and the writing so cliched, I feared that Muller had run out of gas.

Not to worry! I read "Broken Promise Land" in less than 24 hours because the characters and situations were interesting and the writing was just fine. This is the Muller I've come to expect. One of the best in this very fine series.

P.S. If you're new to Muller, I URGE you to read her books in order. She's very careful about not giving away previous mysteries, but the characters really do grow and develop over time in these books. Additionally, there are plot developments that I would not want to have spoiled for me. Unlike authors who take a few books until they hit their stride, Muller was good from the very first Sharon McCone book, "Edwin of the Iron Shoes". Even though the series began in the 1970's, the older ones are suprisingly fresh. If you like character-driven mysteries with strong women at the center, you'll like this series.

Private Investigator Sharon McCone's brother-in-law, Ricky Savage, is a famous and successful Country Western singer. He calls on Sharon to help him uncover the source of threatening notes which he has been receiving. When Sharon begins to investigate, she finds that Ricky's marriage to her sister is in danger, as well as his life. As she digs into Ricky's past, she discovers some sordid things he has done, and finds people who might have a motive to harm him. This is a fast-paced mystery, full of interesting characters and enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. There have been many changes in Sharon's life during the course of this series, and this book is full of them. Marriages and partnerships are made and broken, and the reader gets a fascinating look at part of Sharon's family and at the backstage life of a music star. This is a very entertaining book!

I really enjoy this series; I have read them all. In all the books, I have found the characters to be very true-to-life. These are real people with real problems. The only thing that drives me nuts is the fact that both Sharon McCone and Hy Ripinsky call each other by their last name

Another great Sharon McCone novel - Marcia Muller can't write them fast enough for me!! I love the characters, their development and inter-relationships as well as the witty dialogue. Of course the mystery is wonderful too.

Great book!! Sharon McCone, Rae Kelleher, Hank Zahn, Mick Savage come to life after reading only a few pages. I'm an avid mystery reader, and the Sharon McCone series is one of my favorites! Keep writing, Ms. Muller!!

THE BROKEN PROMISE LAND is another entry in Muller's popular Sharon McCone series. I don't know if I'd characterize myself as a fan of these tales. At least, not like somebody who joins a "fan club" or buys hardcover copies and tries to get the author's autograph on them. I do enjoy the series enough, however, to have read all of them up through this one. In general, I rate the McCone mysteries about four stars. That's above average and explains why I keep coming back.

THE BROKEN PROMISE LAND is, in my opinion, one of the better stories in the series so far. Regular readers will enjoy the update on changes taking place in McCone's life and in the lives of other familiar characters that surround her. Beyond that, though, this is one of Ms. Muller's better plots. Both McCone and her current beau, Hy Ripinsky, get drawn into the action when her brother-in-law, Ricky Savage, who is a genuine country music star, becomes involved with a stalker. From there, the action is fast-paced, both in terms of the mystery and the personal turmoil it entails for McCone and some of her friends and family members.

I have just two minor problems with this story (if you don't want to know anything about what happens in the book you should skip this paragraph). First, I thought that Ricky falling out of his marriage and directly into the welcoming arms of Rae a bit too easy, too convenient. It keeps Ricky in the mix and gives Charlotte an easy entree for future stories, but it was just too pat to suit me. Second, I thought the the events in the final moments, when everything finally becomes clear and the reader is all set for the big final showdown, was a letdown. Too quick and too easy an end after all the effort to uncover the wacko stalker.

THE BROKEN PROMISE LAND is a book that will please and entertain McCone fans, but beyond that it's a good mystery that a casual reader will also find engrossing. Once you get going, it's one you won't easily put down. I've given it a strong four stars and I recommend it. Give it a try.

It is good to have Marcia Muller back, after the very serious mis-step of her last novel, with a book that was much more of a pleasure to read than anything she has written in years, even if it does have some serious shortcomings. I came across Muller's writing for the first time years ago, through a collaboration called "Double" with her husband Bill Pronzini, whose "Nameless Detective" series I liked. I went on to read all 16 of Muller's Sharon McCone mysteries up to this one, as well as some of her lesser books, featuring amateur detectives Elena Oliverez and Joanna Stark (I also slogged through the unreadable Muller-Pronzini "historical" detective novel Beyond The Grave). The McCone books were clearly her best work, but even so it was a bumpy ride.

McCone developed into a familiar, likable, and admirable character, in her own way -- determined, focused on the task at hand, perceptive but not overly sentimental, clearheaded, levelheaded, with a quiet strength and a convincing competence. The stories maintained a basic, if sometimes strained, credibility. Two books were outstanding: Games To Keep The Dark Away and The Shape Of Dread. But over the years the plots went from way too thin and parochial to way too tangled and melodramatic, with later books turning McCone into a "living on the edge of danger" action hero instead of carefully tending to characters, setting, plot, and investigation like a good mystery/detective book should. The ride was never bumpier, and the flaws never more vivid, than with A Wild And Lonely Place, which was so ill-conceived and disappointing that it almost made me give up on the series.

Perhaps realizing that she had gone badly off track with her last book, Muller brought the new story home in The Broken Promise Land. McCone investigates a campaign of harassment against her hit country music singer brother-in-law Ricky Savage, just as he is about to release a new album and go on tour promoting it. In the process, she is drawn into his personal, family, and business problems, including a troubling incident from his looser-living past, the present-day unraveling of his marriage, and his loss of heart about his career. Her assistant Rae Kelleher is drawn in, too -- to a love affair with Ricky, which creates tension with McCone's other assistant, Ricky's computer-savvy son Mick. Meanwhile, McCone feels strains in her relationship with lover Hy Ripinsky, after pulling him and his high-powered security firm into the case as bodyguards.

The combination of the mysterious stalker plot and the personal elements were enough to keep the book entertaining through much of its length. Muller generally did a good job making Ricky, his family, and his musical industry trappings accessible and believable, even if some song lyrics, press clips, and aspects of the characters and story were too pat. Unlike her last book, there were characters and situations to care about and become involved in. There was some investigative legwork and attention to detail and an unexpected twist or two. It was good to be caught up on the All Souls crew, albeit briefly, maintaining important threads of continuity.

But no matter how much of a relief this book was after the last one, to leave a review there, or to write skimpy reviews of every Muller book that seem to read the same, merely gushing praise for everything equally, is neither doing justice to her best work nor being fair to readers. This book was much more enjoyable while it was going on than by the end and on reflection. In fact, it offered an occasion to reflect on some serious points.

Muller's endings can be overwrought and ineffective. The one here was the worst of both worlds - melodramatic and anticlimactic. The build-up, with Rae running around from one out-of-the-way place to another on her own, suddenly the dedicated, driven detective she had failed to be at any time in recent memory, was both overdone and a let-down. The technique of shifting the narration from McCone to "Rae's diary" was clumsy, distracting, gratuitous, and amateurish. The unknown identity revealed at the end was a cliche, and the plot resolution abrupt and simplistic. Worse, it was a "jump ball" - the author could have picked any one of a half-dozen or more characters for the last-minute revelation, never a sign of a truly intricate, cleverly devised mystery. At nearly 400 pages, the book wore on too long, beginning to drag and become repetitive and droning on too much past the climactic scene.

The book also made me realize something about the limitations of the McCone character and the consequences. McCone was thrust into close, emotionally charged events, yet was too low-key, deadpan, detached, and bloodless to interact with them in a dramatically effective, meaningful, or satisfying way. This has bothered me before, but I could not put my finger on it until now. Only further driving the point home, the situation between her and Ripinsky, two supposedly rugged and mature characters, turned out to be childishly trite, superficial, and contrived (not made any more authentic by their references to each other only by their last names). As if to apologize for this, Muller has McCone explain, "I'd grown up in a household where a lot of lip service had been paid to love, but there was a falseness and coldness deep at the core of our family. When I'd left home, I'd put all that aside, vowed there would be no place for similar dishonesty in my adult relationships. Sometimes when you make sure decisions, you unwittingly go overboard in the opposite direction." And in the early pages of Muller's next book, there is yet more on this: McCone describes herself as "reserved," someone who "didn't speak of personal matters" or "trade in emotions." Muller is simply highlighting an increasingly bothersome limitation of her lead character. And sending McCone to forage in the desert (Where Echoes Live), on one-woman commando raids into Baja (Wolf In The Shadows) or the Carribbean (A Wild And Lonely Place), or up in the air repeatedly as a crack pilot (apparently a prominent part of Both Ends Of The Night), only makes matters worse.

Although some supporting characters were distinctive, too many were just a flurry of names - Kurt Girdwood, Forrest Curtin, Jerry Jackson, Norm O'Dell, Pete Sherman, Linda Toole, Tod Dodson, Nona Davidson, Miguel Taylor. Not only did the choice of story, featuring a high-profile music star, bring with it this drawback of too large and impersonal a cast, but it took McCone away from her familiar environs and a more finely crafted case, rushing around to generically described concert venues and ritzy accommodations, lacking the usually interesting descriptions of place. And the book was too long on rote paperwork, forensics, and talks among investigators and security personnel (what did the dry, cursory write-ups on the suspects and their credit histories, or sending the plants to the lab, really show?) and too short on penetrating, clever interrogations, deductions, and resolutions.

The book was too light on Ripinsky and too heavy on Rae. I do not like at all the "action hero" influence that he represents in the books. But if Muller insists on featuring him (and she does), he should be more substantial than this. Here, Ripinsky came off as half-baked, showing no particular skill or personality, merely skulking around acting harried, officious, and by-the-book. Muller's dedication page thanked her husband for "giving me one of the best lines of the book." There were a number of good ones, and I do not know which one she had in mind; but I do know that she could not have meant anything in the following, ludicrous passage: "Hy was thoughtful, running his fingers over his mustache. 'McCone, I can understand a slow progression. Kill the guys who did whatever they did to her; burn down the house; start nasty rumors; tamper with Chris's car; sic a sleazy lawyer on him. But what triggered those notes? What made her -- if it is her -- all of a sudden step up her campaign.'" Really? "Slow progression"? Starting with "killing"? "Progressing" to sending notes? This was embarrassing.

Hardest to take of all, however, was Muller's inconsistent, exaggerated, out-of-nowhere portrayal of Rae. First of all, the character had largely disappeared from view in recent books, with no preparation for her wildly overblown role in this book. It begins with this: "Hy had just returned from making his call and Ricky was seeing the band off when Rae arrived, riding on a golf cart with one of the security men. She was barefoot and had tied the tails of her skirt below her breasts so her midriff was exposed. Her jeans were tight, her smile loose, and in her eyes was the gleam of a groupie. Ricky took one look at her, and in his eyes appeared the gleam of a man who could become very interested in a groupie." Then, overnight, just as suddenly as Rae was demeaningly turned into this vamping "groupie," she became a deep, passionate soulmate to a major celebrity, dispensing career advice that wowed the pros, speaking profundities "softly but in a tone that commanded everyone's attention," soothing his heavy brow, demurely ducking the cameras one minute and courageously emerging in his arms to confront them the next, and leaping, on cue to crank up suspense as the book headed toward its finish, into the role of dogged detective scrabbling around the dusty desert tracking down leads and bullying local cops to save his life. The whole thing came across as implausibly and undeservedly aggrandizing, as phony, far-fetched, out of proportion, and misguided. Why not create a more serious, credible, well-grounded basis for Rae's development as a continuing character?

I was glad to see McCone back in a better book. But Muller needs to aim higher than this.