Customer Reviews

Games to Keep the Dark Away

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

 

 

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!

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.

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...

Sharon McCone is one of the most interesting female sleuths in the genre - and among the most honest and likeable. Here, her personal integrity will not allow her to ignore the fate of a young dead woman and Sharon takes it upon herself to solve the murder. This is a good, solid series to work through. Most highly recommended for a compelling and exciting read.

Marcia Muller pioneered the female PI sub-genre with Sharon McCone. For that alone, true mystery fans need to read at least a few of the books in the series. This book isn't exactly typical (of the ones I've read so far) in that most of the action takes place in a fictional fishing town several hours south of SF. Many of the regulars in Sharon's life are only seen in a glimpse but the new folks are plenty interesting.

The mystery is both simple and complex. How so? When the killer is unveiled, it wasn't anyone I'd put on my list (the surprise) but I kicked myself for not considering that person (in hindsight, there had been enough clues).

I listened to the unabridged audiotape of this book, narrated by a woman named Dunn. It may be a matter of personal taste but I found her narration to be technically correct but so flat in emotion that I suspect it detracted from my enjoyment of the book. I'll be reading the paper versions in the future.

This is the first I read of the McCone books. What I liked about it was that it was a quick read, yet it introduced numerous characters and kept you guessing. It also delved more into the personal life Sharon McCone than other mysteries I've read. I liked getting to know her character and her love interest and that's why I've come here, to buy other Marcia Muller books and learn more about what happens to Sharon McCone.

Sharon McCone drinks to much!