Customer Reviews

Wolf in the Shadows (A Sharon Mccone Mystery)

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

 

 

Some people prefer the old days when Sharon was a young, eager, and underpaid investigator for All Souls Legal Cooperative. For me, the changes in McCone's character were not only expected, but in this case, they served to strengthen McCone's integrity and self-sufficiency. With her estrangment from the All Souls "family", McCone has to rely more than ever on her own sense and meticulous detecting skills. It's this greater sense of resolve, as well as the breathlessly paced plot, that make this novel one of the best Muller novels ever.

Very well written - with atmospheric descriptions of places the detective goes to. I enjoy the Sharon McCone books - having just recently discovered them - and as a person who does not live in the USA, the descriptions of people and places help bring life in the USA alive for me.

Marsha Muller has always struck me as being a formula writer, and her characters never rang true to me. But this book breaks the mold. A great read for those long summer evenings on the porch.

Marcia Miller's character Sharon McCone is so true to life and could easily be a good friend. I recommend her series of books especially to women - read them in order if possible, as it follows Sharon's interesting life story. You can get them through Amazon as ebooks or in really cheap paperbacks!!! Quite a deal!

"Beware of the wolf in the shadows. He is watchful and patient, and when he catches you he will eat you up - skin and bones and heart."

I read Wolf in the Shadows by Marcia Muller for the Book Awards Challenge II. This book was published in 1993 and won the Anthony Award in 1994.

This book is a Sharon McCone mystery and it chronicles ten days in her life. Sharon is a private investigator for All Souls Legal Cooperative in San Francisco. Her lover, Hy Ripinsky, has disappeared and she is searching for him. At the same time, All Souls offers her a "promotion" - a desk job managing investigators and paralegals, and that doesn't hold much appeal for her. Sharon's search for Hy leads her to RKI, a security agency with questionable practices. Hy was delivering a 2 million dollar ransom for RKI when he went missing, so they assumed he'd stolen it. Sharon agrees to find Hy, but first she must shake the agents RKI has tailing her. Through a series of twists and turns (I don't want to spoil the plot), the mystery is solved and Sharon finds herself with two jobs to consider - one with All Souls and another with RKI.

This book is fun read with a complex plot that kept my interest throughout. Mystery lovers will enjoy it, like I did.

Wolf in the Shadows is another in Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone series, and McCone gets better which each subsequent book.

Sharon McCone is a PI living in San Francisco and working for a law firm called All Souls Legal Cooperative. At the beginning of Wolf in the Shadows, McCone is faced with two major issues. First, her job at All Souls is being turned into a supervisor/desk position, something that McCone knows will not work for her. Just when she has to make a decision about her job, her lover, Hy Ripinsky goes missing. Ripinsky is an environmental activist who has a shady past (maybe CIA?). When McCone starts investigating, she discovers that Ripinsky took on a job for an international security agency, RKI. The CEO of a biotech company was kidnapped, and Ripinsky was given the job of delivering the ransom money in exchange for the CEO. But now Ripinsky is missing also, and RKI wants both Ripinsky and their money. They suspect that Ripinsky has skipped town with the ransom money and they hire McCone to find out what happened to him.

McCone travels to San Diego and Mexico on Ripinsky's trail. In the process, she has to deal with illegal aliens, environmental terrorists, crooked Mexican politicians and gang members as well as the ruthless men from RKI. She also must make some hard decisions about what she wants for her future (that's providing she lives to see it through).

The only thing that really spoiled Wolf in the Shadows is that I have not been reading these books in order. Having read one that was published after Wolf in the Shadows, I had a basic idea of how it would end. So from now on, I will be a little more careful to read them in order. Other than that, Wolf is a fine book in a good series.

Sharon McCone is shocked and dismayed when she is summoned in to a meeting of the partners of All Souls' Legal Cooperative where she works. Instead of the reprimand which she expects, Sharon receives the offer of a promotion which would put her behind a desk and away from the action. Although this goes against her grain, Sharon knows she must accept it if she wants to continue to work at All Souls'. At the same time, she discovers that her lover, Hy, has disappeared while on a job for a company called RKI. When she talks to Gage Renshaw at RKI, he tells her that he thinks Hy has double-crossed him and he wants to find him. Sharon offers to do so, thereby getting paid for something she planned to do anyway, and also having a paying job which doesn't involve All Souls'. She travels back and forth between California and Mexico in search of Hy and the answer to a series of unanswered questions. Muller's books in this series become longer as time goes on, and this causes some extra action which becomes a bit distracting to the main plot. However, she still spins a good tale and Sharon McCone remains a very likeable heroine.

It's getting to the point where the ins and outs of life at All Souls Legal Coop is almost as much a part of the story as whatever case PI Sharon McCone is investigating. In this particular installment, McCone faces a career crisis when the "Corporation" wants to promote her to a desk job as administrator over a proposed staff of investigators and paralegals. While wrestling with this dilemma, McCone also tries to track down missing boyfriend Hy Ripinsky, which takes her south to San Diego and across the border into Mexico. Along the way, we once again meet members of McCone's real (biological) family. The story meanders a bit, but a tense climax to the mystery makes the story an entertaining read. The update on life at All Souls makes it a must for fans.

We tried previously one of the early Marcia Muller stories (#4) about her San Fran-based private eye Sharon McCone. Having found that 1984 offering a little lackluster, we jumped ahead to Wolf, #14 of 22, written in 1993. To us, a reasonably entertaining plot was spoiled by maneuvers and border hopping and such stuff that all seemed way too dubious unless our leading lady has suddenly become Wonder Woman. Once again, Sharon ignores her paying job at All Souls and sets off on her own, gone for over a week without even calling in. Sight unseen, an international security firm president not only grants McCone an audience but hires her on the spot to help retrieve either the kidnapped executive under their contract, or the absent agent, Hy Rapinsky, who just happens to be Sharon's lover (!), who has the two-million dollar letter of credit ransom to deliver. We won't delve further into the plot, but before it's over, Sharon is running back and forth into Baja Mexico, spying, remembering trick restrooms she hasn't seen in over a decade, shooting at people, and dealing with shady characters left and right, but emerging unscathed at every twist and turn. By the end it was clear that a Power Ranger has nothing on Ms. McCone.

This series must have a faithful following to warrant 22 titles to date, but despite what the dust cover says, Grafton and Paretsky are much better -- their female leads at least seem like regular real women who are just good at what they do. We believe we'll let the other 20 stories go for now.