While Other People Sleep (Sharon McCone Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Marcia Muller (Author) "The hours while other people sleep are the longest for me, and most uneasy..." (more)
Key Phrases: other people sleep, pickup order, check ride, Lee D'Silva, Valentine's Day, Clive Benjamin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In the old days, Sharon McCone was a scrappy, idealistic investigator working out of a rambling old San Francisco Victorian that housed the All Souls legal collective. In the 1990s, All Souls is a conventionally successful law firm, and McCone is on her own. These days her profile is a lot higher, thanks to a People magazine article, and her digs, both personal and professional, are decidedly more upscale. But the price of fame is higher than she knows; somewhere there's a woman with Sharon's face, Sharon's name, and a supply of Sharon's business cards. The impersonator isn't just drumming up business on her own--she's sleeping with McCone's clients and then stealing from them, destroying the agency's reputation, and threatening Sharon's family and friends as well as her livelihood. The mystery woman may even have found a way to screw up Sharon's relationship with Hy Ripinsky, her long-time lover. What's certain is that she knows the most intimate details of McCone's private as well as public life, and that wherever Sharon goes, her impersonator has somehow managed to get there first. What seemed at first like an innocent case of heroine-worship turns decidedly deadly, especially since McCone has no clue as to the mystery woman's motives, plans, or identity.

Marcia Muller almost single-handedly invented the genre of female P.I.'s, and she's in top form here, capitalizing on McCone's vulnerabilities as well as her strengths in a tightly plotted mystery with a dramatic climax, strong characters, and solid characterization. In prior installments, both Muller and McCone had started to lose their edge a bit, but fans of longstanding will be delighted by this engrossing adventure. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
That's when Sharon McCone, ace San Francisco PI, grapples with nightmares in this gripping 19th outing in 20 years (following Both Ends of the Night, 1997). Someone is impersonating Sharon, wearing her name-tag at parties, sleeping with unsuitable men, committing crimes of which the detective can be accused, erasing her phone messages, using her credit cards, even breaking into her apartment, mistreating her cat and opening a bottle of her favorite wine. The imitator seems to want to become the PI, but why? McCone's mood isn't helped when one of her assistants, Ted Smalley, starts acting weirdly, and her lover, Hy Ripinsky, seems to be pinned down in a mysterious kidnapping in Latin America and is out of touch for far too long. McCone has to work hard to stay afloat under fearful pressure, and only the loyal teamwork of her crew and her determination to run her nemesis to earth brings a hard-won release. Her new flying skills are put to good use in a nail-biting climax as her doppelg?nger steals her and Ripinsky's cherished Citabria plane . As always, Muller's straightforward, no-nonsense writing and fully dimensioned characterizations lend credibility and color to her deftly plotted tale.
Copyright 1998 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: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446607215
• ISBN-13: 978-0446607216
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #416,831 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 20 in The Sharon McCone Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read, however, start from the beginning, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

Here is another great read from Muller. She has yet to dissapiont, unlike so many others that we have become accustomed to reading in this catagory. If you are just beginning with her, please start at the beginning of the series. While the ending was mildly anti-clamatic, her only better works were: "Double" and "Where echoes live." Muller is not a 'Sue Grafton,' her stories are not tired an weak. Muller still tells a wonderful story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars McCONE vs McCONE, April 29, 2001

By	Mac Blair "Mac Blair" (Huntingdon, TN USA) - See all my reviews

In this one Sharon McCone is going against herself, or so it appears. An imposter is using her name and is reading her mind. The book started off real well and I thought it was going to be the best McCone I had read in a while, then, after Sharon found out who the imposter was,the rest was anti-clamatic. Then we got into a severl pages about the planes again. I agree with one of the other reviewers, the books were better when the stories were much more simple. When Sharon was with All Souls. If you want some good reading, read the earlier books and leave the later ones alone.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You Won't Want to Sleep With This Book, March 10, 2000

By A Customer

A wonderfully written book. It kept me on the edge of my seat and had a surprise ending.