Customer Reviews

Burn Out (Sharon McCone, No. 25)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Muller's latest book shows how far the author has come in her craft and highlights the uniqueness of this series. Few authors could pull off a novel where the heroine escapes to the country for some personal time out without subjecting the reader to introspective, sappy interludes. Even fewer can keep a heroine living on the edge after she's married. We don't get those long intimate scenes with Too Much Information.

So what do we get? Muller's pacing seems to be sharper than ever. Sharon McCone continues to grow as a person and detective. I liked the scenes where Sharon decides to make friends with the horse who seems to dislike her so much. I also liked the scenes where Sharon pilots airplanes (including a brief moment when she enjoys teasing a police officer who's flying as a passenger).

And of course we follow Sharon as she inevitably gets caught up in a mystery involving a range of characters from trailer dwellers to a wealthy East Coast magnate. Sharon combines her own peerless interviewing skills with a touch of "moccasin telegraph" and her nephew's special connection to the keyboard.

McCone defies female stereotypes without making a fuss about it. She's not afraid to call in "markers" with a politically connected client to get something she needs. When she briefly reconnects with her father, she reports family feelings without a touch of sentimentality. Sharon is one straight-up gal.

The plot was satisfying and the ending plausible. I suspect some readers will feel the solution was telegraphed but I say the author played fair and dropped hints. There's a tense scene where the suspense might seem too short and climax is, well, somewhat anti-climactic. If there's any flaw in the book, it's that penultimate chapter: plausible but not as hair-raising as a mystery reader might want.

In another episode, Sharon's nephew Mick turns up surprising facts about someone who has been in the public spotlight for quite awhile. These days, it's hard to believe a sharp journalist would not have been sniffing around many years earlier. Stories can be buried but with the Internet, it's harder.

So all in all, Burn Out was a deeply satisfying read. I'm writing this review in late October. If you're flying somewhere for the holidays, I'd save a few inches in a carry-on bag. But if you can hold off on picking up this book and reading all the way through, your willpower is a lot stronger than mine.

BURN OUT
Marcia Muller
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
$24.99 - Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-446-58107-3
309 pages
Reviewer: Annie Slessman

Sharon McCone, the main character of BURN OUT by Marcia Muller owns a private investigation service and has worked one to many cases. She is burned out and needs a break. She takes that break at a ranch she owns in California's high desert country.

Determined not to do another investigation, her resolve is softened when her ranch manager's niece is murdered and another niece is missing. McCone's friendship with her ranch manager and his wife draws her into a commitment to both find the murderer of his niece and to find the missing child. During her investigation, she also finds her drive to once again engage the work she is meant to do.

The storyline is a good one....the characterizations, vivid and believable. One feels an interactive quality while reading the story and the want to continually turn the page is ever present.

The character of Sharon McCone is not a new one. She first appeared in 1977 has lead to THE EVER-RUNNING MAN, Muller's 25th novel which was quoted in The Chicago Tribune as "one of the treasurers of the genre."

For the mystery readers out there, this one would be considered a must read. For those who just like a good story, well told, this is your book as well.

In addition to the Sharon McCone novels, Muller is the author of three novels set in the fictional Soledad County, a remote stretch of the northern California coast. The Washington Post has cited Muller's work, Cape Perdido as one of the best mysteries of 2005. Muller lives with her husband, mystery writer Bill Pronzini, in northern California.

First Sentence: I sat on the bluff's edge, facing southeast, where a newly risen full moon cast a shimmery path over the waters of Tufa Lake.

After the last couple cases, Sharon McCone is seriously questioning whether she wants to continue with her business and is taking a vacation at her husband Hy's ranch. She sees a young woman who appears to be in trouble but refuses Sharon's offer of help. When the woman later turns up murdered, Sharon can't help but get involved in the investigation for her killer.

Once before, with "Wolf in the Shadows," Muller made a pivotal advancement in both her writing and in the character of McCone. Muller's ability to have McCone grow and change has made her one of the best female PI characters being written. Even though Hy is rarely on the scene, even their relationship has developed through the series. In this book, it's nice to see McCone being introspective and questioning her future while being self-deprecating. At the same time, she stays true to her instincts.

The story is tightly plotted with lots of twists along the way, few of which I saw coming. Involving McCone's Indian heritage and the information on the "moccasin telegraph" added an extra layer to the story. As always, Muller provides a very strong sense of place and believable dialogue.

I'm always afraid I'll get tired of this series. To her credit, Ms. Muller's writing brings me back and keeps me involved with each new book.

I've read most of the earlier books in this series when Sharon was a struggling p.i.and then working with a firm helping the poor. I found the series good at that time. But now Sharon is pretty rich and her husband Hy is probably even richer. Her problems are about managing her successful company from which she must run and she runs to the ranch owned by her husband where she comes up with a problem involving his employees there and their relatives. The problem itself is interesting and also the ranch is interesting. My problem with the book is that the main character is really burned out and her solution to her own problem with the business is to find someone else to replace her as manageress. I found myself turned off by her problems as a wealthy woman. She was so much more interesting when she was young and struggling. All the later books I've read were also uninteresting mainly because Sharon is always mentioning her important husband. And in this particular book, because of him t he doors of investigation are all opened for her.
The book is well written and still held my interest; but the series as a whole no longer pulls me in. I think the author should try her hand at going back again with a young, new and inexperienced p.i. who has to fight on her own without the wealthy background.

After all these years, I continue to be impressed by how this series draws me in every time...and Sharon and her world never get old or boring.

However, what kept me from giving this book five stars has been building up for awhile. I've never liked the character of Hy (the only character I don't like besides Rae), and this book made me glaringly aware of why. It seemed like Marcia Muller was trying to force the relationship, and the reader to believe in it, in a way that made it feel forced. It was always "Hy's and my bedroom"..."Hy's and my ranch"..."Hy's and my Cessna"..."Hy's and my horse." Sharon is married to Hy -- if she walks into her bedroom, the reader is smart enough to figure out that it's her and Hy's bedroom. We don't need to be constantly reminded that they're a pair who share everything. It made Sharon lose her individuality and independence, two of the things I've always loved most about the character. I also haven't cared for this "new, improved" Sharon with the three houses and the private plane and the access to top-notch people and connections around the world. It makes her seem less like a real, everyday person, which is one of the things Marcia Muller always has done so well.

Looking forward to "Locked In" so much that I'm considering buying the hardcover!

Burn out is exactly what Sharon McCone is suffering from [or, more correctly, that from which she is suffering] - - she is in the throes of deep depression following her close call with death at the end of her last case, described in Ms. Muller's "The Ever-Running Man," and in a period of soul-searching. As such, she has gone to the ranch owned by Sharon and her husband, Hy Ripinsky, in the high desert country of California. Now in her early forties, her future and that of her highly successful investigative agency is uncertain.

The book is a distinct change of pace in the series, taking McCone back to the Bay area only for brief stops, the remainder of the time in and around small-town Vernon, California, where she plans to "rest, regain my perspective, and rethink my future." [Mid-life crisis, perhaps?] Instead, she reluctantly becomes involved in the disappearance of a niece of her ranch manager, a young woman of Northern Paiute heritage [Sharon herself is Shoshone] nearly eighteen years old, with whom Sharon has had only the briefest of encounters and yet feels a bond. Sharon commits herself to finding the girl, saying "cases change both the investigated and the investigator. Maybe one last effort would show me the way to the new life I was reaching for" - - her absolute last one, she vows.

Vernon, California, Sharon discovers, is virtually a Peyton Place for the present time [if that term hasn't completely lost any cultural significance as a reference point]. Small towns can hide a lot of things, causing Sharon to think "about the assumptions we make about people and how sometimes they're totally wrong." But Sharon's investigative skills are as sharp as ever, and the tale which unfolds is completely engaging as Sharon tries to find her way through her dilemma as well as find a murderer. Hy himself, busy with corporate reorganization, makes only short but always vital appearances here. The author has delivered another fast-moving, well-written novel, every bit as enjoyable as the prior entries in the series, and it is recommended.

Still struggling from her harrowing experience (see THE EVER RUNNING MAN), depressed San Francisco based private investigator Sharon McCone decides to get some R&R at her Yosemite ranch while musing about her future. McCone wonders if perhaps it is time to quit the field operations sleuthing business and become a 100 percent executive desk potato; she knows she is fortunate to be alive as she suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.

However, the ranch quickly proves tedious especially after the adrenaline higher than Nob Hill war she just fought. She soon gets involved in the case of her ranch manager Ramon Perez's nieces and their mother. One niece Haley was murdered while the other Amy and their alcoholic mother Miri vanished. McCone looks at the dysfunctional interrelationships between the family, but soon looks wider when two more murders and an apparent suicide seemingly but loosely related occur.

BURN OUT is a perfect follow up to the excellent EVER RUNNING MAN; especially enlightening is McCone's inner thoughts re field work as she remains shook up from the recent traumatic events. Her spouse Hy Ripinsky, who feels guilt over what he put his wife through in the EVER RUNNING MAN, assists her though he would prefer she retire; her Shoshone family also helps on the case as the story line turns into a solid whodunit while McCone remains hesitant between desk and field.

Harriet Klausner

After the case of the Ever-Running ManThe Ever-Running Man (Sharon McCone Mysteries), Sharon McCone has taken a break for some R&R to get her head together and is at Hy's ranch in Mono County on the east side (dry side) of the Sierras. She has been having nightmares, and is not sure about her agency or what direction her life is taking. Then she finds a body, and is drawn into a local case to help the ranch caretaker. It is Sharon McCone back to her original self as an active investigator rather that the recent Sharon McCone who became an executive running a PI firm (something that was turning me away from the series. The activity snaps her out of the doldrums as she has to both solve the case and also make decisions about the future of her firm.

The case itself becomes a little transparent towards the end, but it is an interesting case in a small town where everyone thinks they know everyone else's business. Some people try to go home again, but that does not always work out for the best.

There is a side issue about horses.

For earlier stories about the character see The Mccone Files

From the book jacket: Traumatized by a recent life-or-death investigation ("The Ever-Running Man"), Sharon McCone flees to her ranch in California's high desert country to contemplate her future. Deep depression shadows her days and nights, and a chance encounter with a troubled, highly secretive Native American woman begins to haunt her dreams. Even though she is determined not to investigate anything during her stay--and perhaps not ever again--McCone is drawn into the plight of the young woman and her dysfunctional family. A murder and traces of violence at a deserted resort lead her across the desert and into Nevada, and finally to a remote and isolated ranch, where danger lies closer that she expects and where her future and life itself may hang in the balance.

Muller's ever-capable PI Sharon McCone returns to form in this novel, where she's even contemplating retirement. She muses about how well-trained her staff is and how she could just let them handle the everyday workings of her agency. However, she's drawn back into sleuthing by the mysterious death of a family member of ranch manager Ramon Perez, who is Northern Paiute. McCone comes to terms with her life as a PI as well as her Shoshone heritage. It's refreshing to see a novelist create such realistic characters and not tire of writing about them after so many years.

I read Marcia Muller's books years ago, but had not read one for a long time when I stumbled across her latest book Locked In at the library. This renewed my interest in her novels. Burn Out was an interesting book. The villain, though, was easy to detect from the beginning of the story. The twists and turns of the plot, though, kept my interest through to the conclusion.