Games to Keep the Dark Away [Mass Market Paperback]

Marcia Muller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1990

Picture Salmon Bay: an isolated, run-down northern California village, home to an idle fleet of fishing boats, a deserted amusement park, and a handful of secretive, even hostile residents. When private investigator Sharon McCone arrives in search of one of the town's wayward daughters, the train leads to the thriving resort of Port San Marco. McCone believes that the missing woman, a former social worker named Jane Anthony, was involved in the suspicious deaths of three terminally ill patients at an exclusive hospice.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 215 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press (April 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0445408510
• ISBN-13: 978-0445408517
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,031,189 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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Twisting plot & an easy read, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Games to Keep the Dark Away (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the 1st Muller book that I've really, really enjoyed. The others were so-so only (I'm reading them in order). This one was great! Suspenseful, interesting characters, nice little love interest for Sharon (besides that drip policeman she'd been seeing in the other books)... Liked it!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sharon investigates a disappearance, June 11, 2002

By 

Karen Potts (Lake Jackson, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Games to Keep the Dark Away (Mass Market Paperback)

Investigator Sharon McCone receives a call from a famous photographer, asking her to find his missing roommate. She has a hard time discerning exactly what their relationship is, but proceeds on her investigation. She traces the missing roommate to her hometown and then finds her dead. The suspects range from the photographer himself to several of her co-workers at a Hospice where she used to work and where several people died under suspicious circumstances. As usual, McCone tracks down the murderer, but not before putting herself in danger and picking up a new boyfriend along the way. This is another solid entry in this long-running series.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars #4 of 22 (so far) Sharon McCone Private Eye -- average, May 5, 2002

By 

Gerald M. Bull "Jerry Bull" (Fairview, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Games to Keep the Dark Away (Mass Market Paperback)

The 22 books to date in Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone series span from 1977, so this is one of the earlier ones (1984) in a set that obviously has staying power. Our leading lady is a full-time employee of a law firm where she handles investigations along with more routine paralegal work, but she seemed pretty free to roam around as she chose, with or without a paying client. Sharon's a just-thirty single private eye in the mode of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone or Karen Kijewski's Kat Colorado and reminded me of both of them, although indeed Sharon may have come first.

Our copy of the hardback was just 150 pages long, so it wasn't too long nor too complicated a tale. There seemed to be few recurring support characters and most of the story took place in California, but away from home base in San Francisco. The plot featured a couple of murders and some older questionable deaths spiced things up a little, but in general we found the book, while reasonably enjoyable, a little lackluster by modern standards. We might be inclined to check out a more recent work and see if that might be more satisfying before reading the set from the start forward. So -- not bad, but a rather typical entree in the female private eye genre...