Cape Perdido [Mass Market Paperback]

Marcia Muller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2006

- Muller's McCone series has consistently received strong reviews from national publications, including the "New York Times Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, and USA TODAY, among others. "Dead Midnight was published by Warner in 7/03 and hit the "Los Angeles Times bestseller list, grossing over 76,000 copies.- Marcia Muller is the recipient of the Private live Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award. All the Sharon McCone novels and Muller's two previous stand-alones were Main Selections of The Mystery Guild.- "Wolf in the Shadows (Warner, 2001) was nominated for an Edgar Award and won the Anthony Boucher Award.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

MWA Grand Master Muller delivers a relatively routine stand-alone, a murder mystery with an environmental veneer, which falls short of the quality of her acclaimed Sharon McCone series (The Dangerous Hour, etc.). When a greedy North Carolina corporation seeks to harvest water from a quiet California lumber town—the Cape Perdido of the title—Jessie Domingo, a public and community relations consultant, and Fitch Collier, an arrogant and difficult attorney who specializes in water rights, team up to help the community fight the interloper. The conflict between the townspeople and the company rapidly escalates after a sniper takes a shot at one of the huge bags to be used to transport the water. The lingering shadow from a decades-old unsolved murder connected to many of the local players in the dispute complicates Domingo's work and leads to even more violence. Less than compelling characters and a pat ending mark this as an uncharacteristic lapse for Muller, who hopefully will return to form with her next book.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Like Cyanide Wells (2003), this stand-alone mystery from the creator of the popular Sharon McCone series draws much of its appeal from its rustic, beautiful Northern California setting. A small tourist community, dependent on fishing and boating, is under siege. A -water-exporting company has petitioned the state for rights to literally bag the water from the Perdido River and haul it to drought-plagued communities in the southern part of the state. Tempers are hot, and seasoned environmentalists have stepped in to help the locals fight the commercial interlopers. Suddenly events spin out of control, and two activists disappear. Using the alternating perspective of four characters, Muller teases out the relationship between the present-day struggle and a terrible secret from the past. There is little here in terms of tone, style, and atmosphere that will seem new to Muller's regular readers, but the carefully measured plot revelations, which gradually expose the ways in which past and present are entwined, prove more than enough to keep both longtime fans and newcomers spellbound to the finish. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (July 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446614998
• ISBN-13: 978-0446614993
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 0.9 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARCIA MULLER has written many novels and short stories. Her novel "Wolf in the Shadows" won the Anthony Boucher Award. The recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award - their highest accolade - she lives in northern California with her husband, mystery writer Bill Pronzini.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe it's just me, but this wasn't a pageturner, October 3, 2005

By 

M. C. Crammer (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cape Perdido (Hardcover)

I liked this book less than others I've read by Marcia Muller, which have been in the Sharyn McCone series. I suspect that the missing McCone accounts for some of this dissatisfaction. There's really no single person who is the detective in this book -- rather, the story focuses on a half-dozen people in short chapters, which have the name of the character at the top of each chapter.

I never really engaged with anyone in the book, either positively or negatively, but the plotting and writing were fairly good.

The story involves a conflict in Northern California over water rights to a river. A megacorporation is trying to get permission to pump the river water into a very large bag and tow the bag to southern California, which needs water. The locals think syphoning off the water will ruin the environment, not to mention the tourist trade on which their economy depends. I kept waiting for someone to get killed, chapter after chapter, so I'd get to the usual murder mystery, but it's not that kind of book (although there is a murder in it).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Town Threatened by an Old Secret and a Water Grab, August 1, 2005

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Cape Perdido (Hardcover)

Cape Perdido is an interesting variation on a familiar mystery theme -- the lone detective against the town and its secrets. In Cape Perdido, a small town's residents find their livelihoods at risk when an out-of-state firm bids to drain the Perdido River and ship the water off to Southern California in large water bags. What little money comes into the town is from tourists . . . who are drawn by the river and the nearby shore.

It's the 11th hour and New York consultants have been brought in to organize a defense by building on the local resistance efforts. But the consultants don't seem to be on the same page. The local resisters are also in conflict with one another. What they have in common is a disregard for Timothy McNear who is facilitating the water grab . . . after having shut down the town's mill just a few years earlier. But McNear and several of the resisters seem to have a hidden mystery in common. What are they hiding?

As the story evolves, you will find yourself puzzled by what's going on and why . . . but not any more puzzled than any of several of the characters are. Ms. Muller provides a variety of narrators and points of view to show just how confusing the situation really is. She holds the key back until right before the end . . . in a telltale clue that suddenly ties all the ribbons together.

For me, the book worked quite well as a story and as a mystery. My main complaint against the book was that I didn't find myself feeling very sympathetic to any of the characters until near the end. Without that sympathetic connection, the plot details remained details . . . rather than a compelling story that required resolution for the "good" guys and gals.

You would think that a story about a corporation wanting to steal water rights would create automatic sympathy towards those who would lose benefits from having the water. It probably says more about how unsympathetic these characters are to say that such opposition didn't automatically make the potential "victims" attractive.

I am a fan of the Sharon McCone novels but find that Ms. Muller has painted herself into a story line that involves too many characters to be easy to enjoy. I'm sure she relishes operating with more freedom, and I think she used that unaccustomed freedom well in Cape Perdido. If she had created some more sympathetic characters, I would have delighted in the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mueller's not-so-good is still pretty good!!, August 27, 2005

By 

schnauzerlady "Tina" (Columbus, OH, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cape Perdido (Hardcover)

As always, the environmental plot is of immediate concern and well researched - the technical points of the actual narrative get a bit tiresome though, with the abrupt, shifting points of view making it difficult to feel very sympathetic about the many characters we're introduced to. Not one of Ms. Mueller's best by any means, but a quick, enjoyable read and still better than your average off-the-rack fiction - the ending is a neat twist that makes the book satisfying.