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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
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).
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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
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.
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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
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.
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