Customer Reviews

Dead Midnight (Sharon McCone Mysteries)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As everyone is wont to say: time does fly. It's a quarter of a century since ace mystery author Marcia Muller brought San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone onto the literary scene. McCone was one of the first female PIs, and one of the most compelling. She still is.

It's hard to believe that Muller is getting better because, for many, she started at the top rung of this genre. Nonetheless, "Dead Midnight" is superb, above and beyond her past work.

With this, the 22nd McCone adventure, McCone is still trying to recover from the suicide of her brother. Then, there is another suicide. A talented, hip, young man who has a good job with an online magazine takes his own life. What caused him to leap from the Bay Bridge?

His family's sorrow pierces McCone's heart as she relives the grief she felt and still feels at the loss of her brother. Perhaps it is this empathy that enures her to the danger she soon finds herself in.

Muller is one in a million and so is McCone.

- Gail Cooke

Dead Midnight by Marcia Muller is a partial return to the old days of Sharon McCone. In this entry to the McCone series, there is no flight in a small plane, no Hy to the rescue, no searching for long lost ancestors [Listen To The Silence is a great, but very different, Sharon McCone novel], and very little travel outside of San Francisco. The book starts with the suicide of Sharon's brother Joey and a case involving the suicide of a young man whose family believes he was worked to death by an online magazine. Contemplating the whys of suicide pretty much go by the wayside as Sharon dives into the daily life of the family she's working for and the excessive goings on at the 'zine. This novel abounds with unlikable folks who deserve to get what's coming to them. On the one hand, the story kept me up to the wee hours of the morning several nights in a row. On the other hand, the story drifted from serious to dark comedy and could have been a little tighter. Call this one a 4.3 star book.

Beginning a Sharon McCone novel is like meeting with old friends: you enjoy finding out what's new with familiar characters and meeting new ones, visiting familiar haunts in San Francisco and knowing you will be entertained from the very first page.

This is the 22nd Sharon McCone novel and Marcia Muller is still at the top of her game. Lots of things have happened to Sharon recently, particularly the suicide death of her brother Joey, only a short time after her father's death. Sharon is wondering if she could have done more to help Joey, when she is offered a case involving another suicide. This case, involving Roger Nagasawa, a young employee in a hip, online magazine, is to investigate whether overwork and mistreatment caused his death and thus could be the basis of a lawsuit against the company. Sharon almost refuses to take the case since it is so close to real life. But she does take it and is soon caught up in the vicious dog-eat-dog world of a dot.com struggling to survive. What did Roger find out about a conspiracy to sink the company and what did this have to do with his suicide? A number of clues surface which show Roger had found things someone wanted to hide Before Sharon finds the answer, an old friend is murdered and some of the evidence points to her.

Woven integrally into the story are threads of venture capital business, computer security, personal privacy, and greed--all which add interest and intrigue to a very fast paced story.

Over the years Sharon McCone has kept the elements that we have enjoyed--her feistiness, ingenuity, and independence but she has also matured, developing a good-sized PI firm and lots of interesting coworkers and supporting characters that we have come to know and love. It just keeps getting better and better....

Sharon McCone's brother Joey has not been heard of for some time, and when his suicide is discovered, the mystery of his disappearance is tragically solved. Shortly thereafter Sharon is asked to investigate another suicide, that of a young man named Roger Nagasawa. He worked for an online magazine and his parents are attempting to prove that the stresses of his job led to his tragic death. When Sharon begins to investigate, she finds that there are many irregularities in the company's finances, and the executives are treating their employees very poorly. A close friend of Sharon's is killed and her investigation intensifies. This is a typical well-written Sharon McCone mystery and it shows us even more facets of a character which has endured since the late 70's. Marcia Muller continues to write quality books and is to be commended for the consistency of her writing over many years, and the fresh insights she gives us about her main character.

I was expecting much more. "Listen to the Silence," the previous installment of Marica Muller's enduring Sharon McCone series, was well worth the price in Hardcover. I could have waited for "Dead Midnight" from the library or in paperback.

"Dead Midnight" brings Sharon off the Rez and back to San Francisco. There are some strange goings-on at an online magazine and McCone is on the case. I got the impression that this is as much a transitional book - getting the characters in the series from the previous book and into an upcoming one - as an independent event. The "special guest stars" in this episode are not well developed and the reader is frequently left wondering: " What's his/her motivation?"

Here's a passage from the book, not meant to be self-descriptive - but could be: "I opened the engine cowling and stared blankly inside. One of those strange memory lapses, like walking into a room and not knowing what you went there for."

I just finished reading this book and it took me a month. I kept expecting it to get better but it never did. I would put it down for days before I would pick it back up. I even read another book during that time.

Marcia Muller is a good author but this one just doesn't cut it.

Sorry Marcia

I usually enjoy Marcia Muller's books, but as a mystery fan I find few things as frustrating as a mystery novel that doesn't solve the mystery--or mysteries, as the case may be. This one leaves so many loose ends dangling I found myself wishing for a Q&A with the author at the story's end. There are explanations that don't fit the story's timeline, characters whose involvement in and/or motivation for various crimes is never explained, and a climax that was, frankly, flat. If I were a client of Ms. McCone and received a report with this many holes in it, I wouldn't pay her fee.

In San Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone does not know which feeling rips her guts worse. Is it the guilt for not realizing how depressed her brother was or is the grief that Joey killed himself? Though reluctant to investigate the suicide of Roger Nagasawa, Sharon believes work is the best thing to keep her mind off of Joey even if there appears surface parallels.

Roger worked for a popular Internet magazine that highlighted the in happenings in the Bay area. Her inquiries lead Sharon to conclude Roger was going to expose the management of his magazine that is somehow failing in spite of strong loyalty and plenty of capital. However, Roger's proof is missing. Other key players also have vanished as McCone works the West Coast to keep other participants from leaping off of a bridge.

In spite of the underlying suicide theme that is handled reasonably well though overkilled (bad taste pun), DEAD MIDNIGHT is a fun who-done-it for those readers who want a story line faster than a world class 100 yard dash or even a quarter horse race. McCone races faster than speeding Flash as she overcomes her feelings of inadequacy and self-culpability with Joey's death to follow the clues. Marcia Muller furnishes an interesting McCone entry.

Harriet Klausner

Dead Midnight by Marcia Muller is another Sharon McCone mystery that I don't think measures up to her best in this series. Maybe it's Muller, or maybe it's the fact that I have read about six of them in a short period of time.

Private investigator, Sharon McCone, is asked by a lawyer friend to do him a favor. His godson, Roger Nagasawa, has committed suicide. His family wants to file a wrongful-death suit against the high-tech, fast-paced online magazine that their son worked for. McCone's job is to find proof that the company, InSite, worked Roger to death. The fact that she would even take on such a case is a very big stretch.

As with A Walk Through the Fire, there is just way too much going on in terms of plot. As usual with McCone books, there is quite a bit underneath the surface that McCone must sort through. On top of everything else, McCone is still dealing with the suicide of her own brother, Joey.

I have yet to read all Muller's works, but after two so-so books, I think I'll give them a rest for awhile.

Sorry, as a former Bay Area resident I KNOW the difference between the Bay Bridge (which Roger jumped) and the Golden Gate (which is on the cover of the book!) I know the GG is the much more recognizable landmark, but still. . . Roger chose the Bay Bridge for a reason.

but otherwise, this was a thoroughly enjoyable book. Very easy to read with very engaging characters and good dialogue. It's the first Sharon McCone I've read and I will be reading more.