Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (Mass Market Paperback)

by Marcia Muller (Author) "I made the best decision of my life on a high meadow in California's White Mountains, where I'd gone to watch for the wild mustangs..." (more)
Key Phrases: dope farm, crafts outlet, bottle house, Lost Hope, San Francisco, Bay Vista (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
While Muller continues to reveal new facets of character in her San Francisco PI, Sharon McCone, this latest case, the 15th, is considerably tamer than the Mexican border skirmishing featured in her 1993 Edgar-nominated A Wolf in the Shadows. McCone has just left the All-Souls Legal Cooperative and opened her own business when an eccentric friend from her UC-Berkeley days, who now specializes in rescuing failing corporations, asks her to find out who is sabotaging his efforts to save a San Francisco shipping firm and threatening his life. T. J. "Suitcase" Gordon reports some odd accidents, but McCone suspects that the obsessively private man may also be paranoid. She meets Gordon's wife Anna, who could have been her sister ("we looked that much alike"), but then an explosion destroys the Gordons' secluded northern California home, leaving Anna dead. With Gordon in reclusive mourning, Sharon investigates two of his past projects, one in a revived Nevada ghost town and another at a moribund steel center in Pennsylvania. Unearthing possible revenge motives and another murder victim, she draws the killer's malevolent attention to herself back in San Francisco. A final, abrupt climax caps this adventure, whose cast--outside of always amiable Sharon, her eager, troublesome nephew/assistant and her barely glimpsed lover, Hy Ripinsky--is a generally unengaging lot. Mystery Guild selection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Problems of the heart, ambivalent feelings of independence, and acute observations of reality lend investigator Sharon McCone a solid and enduring foundation of credibility. The San Francisco series heroine opens McCone Investigations with the bizarre case of a long-ago friend and onetime lover who believes someone wants him dead. McCone must first separate truth from fantasy, since the highly paid but lonely corporate turnaround man may just be paranoid, imagining several attempts on his life. Muller (Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes, LJ 6/1/92) maintains her exemplary high standards: great female private eye, smooth flowing narrative, and riveting plot.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446603023
• ISBN-13: 978-0446603027
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #638,027 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 15 in The Sharon McCone Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharon McCone Sets Up Her Own Agency, May 19, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Sharon McCone is one of the top detective characters of all time. This book is a critical one in the series, because Sharon moves out of All Soul's to start her own business. This change is a critical one in developing her self-confidence, her relationship with her family and with Hy, and in making the stories more interesting. If you want to read the newer novels, you really should read this one first.

This story must set some kind of record for unexpected twists. I won't go into detail for obvious reasons, but no one and nothing are what they seem. Unlike a lot of mysteries where all of the twisting and resolution occurs in the next to the last or the last chapter, the complications come fast and furious throughout the book.

The main story line relates to an old Berkeley friend of Sharon's reading about her new agency, and sending a helicopter to pick her up. He's now a big corporate turnaround specialist and is working on a deal in the Bay area. But someone seems to be trying to scare or possibly kill him. Why? Who? Those are just the beginning of the mysteries that Sharon must solve.

Along the way, she learns a lot of unexpected things about her client and herself. For example, she flees a romantic 39th birthday with Hy to pursue a lead for her client. Now that's dedication to duty.

In addition to being very well plotted, the characters are at their most appealing. This is one of Marcia Muller's best works! Enjoy!

4.0 out of 5 stars An Intelligent Mystery, April 8, 2009

By	B. Brody "Fairbanks Reader" (Fairbanks, Alaska) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is an intelligent mystery. Sharon McCone, sleuth, goes into the private eye business for herself. Her first customer is an old friend from her 60's days in Berkeley. This friend is now in the business of doing turn-arounds for companies facing bankruptcy. Is someone out to kill him or is he paranoid from too many years of drug use?

This is a good page-turner, perfect for the beach, vacation or airplane.

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, if not startling or anything, September 5, 2004

By	David W. Nicholas (Montrose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Marcia Muller has the distinction of being the first woman to successfully write a private eye series where the protagonist was female. The big wave of these books were, of course, prompted by Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, however. The difference between Muller's books and that of the other two women is difficult to discern, but I believe I have the answer. Paretsky and Grafton write books where there's a private eye who's female, while Muller writes about a woman who's a private eye. This is a subtle distinction: there's no doubt that all three series have a lot in common. For whatever the reason, however, Muller's stuff reads (to me anyway) more like a romance novel with a mystery plot than an actual mystery. Having said that, Till the Butchers Cut Him Down isn't a bad addition to her series at all.

Sharon McCone has struck out on her own, leaving the legal cooperative that employed her in the previous books in the series, and decided to become a real private eye, complete with office and assistant. Her first case involves an old friend, "Suitcase" Gordon, who used to deal in illicit things which he always carried in a suitcase, hence the nickname. Suitcase is now a successful businessman, but not a very popular one, and someone's apparently taken it into their heads to kill him, destroy his business, or both. He comes to Sharon to see if she can stop them, and the book goes from there.

Muller's prose is easy to read and workmanlike. There's nothing really poetic here, and the characters are only semi-well-defined, but the plot is reasonable and she knows how to keep the action moving. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to read a decent mystery, with an afternoon at the beach to kill.