Marcia Muller Mystery Collection

Marcia Muller Books and Novels

McCone & Friends by Marcia Muller

Creator of the modern female private eye story, Marcia Muller has been writing novels and short stories about Sharon McCone since 1977. In the process McCone has gained a host of associates and formed her own detective agency. Some seven years ago, Marcia Muller decided to show readers different views of her sleuth by relating cases through the eyes of McCone's colleagues. McCone and Friends contains three stories told by McCone herself, as well as a novella and a short story narrated by the agency's investigator Rae Kelleher, a story from the viewpoint of its office manager Ted Smalley, an investigation conducted by McCone's nephew Mick Savage, and one by her long-term lover Hy Ripinsky. The settings range from small planes to a sweatshop which puts Asian women into virtual slavery, and the mysteries surround a 1950's jukebox in a rundown hotel, a sculpture welded together by a long-missing and now very-dead artist. In perhaps the most moving story of all, a teenage girl has vanished leaving as a clue only a collage on her wall. The McCone Files shows why Marcia Muller is one of the greatest mystery writers of our generation.

The McCone Files by Marcia Muller

The McCone Files gathers all of Sharon McCone's short cases covering her entire career as staff investigator at All Souls Legal Cooperative in San Francisco. Marcia Muller comments in the introduction, "Over the seventeen years since her first case, very little about McCone except her voice has remained the same, and the stories in this collection trace her development." Each tale, including two written especially for this volume, is a miniature masterpiece of plotting, realistic characters and vivid settings.
From the death of a clown in Diablo Valley to the disappearance of a young socialite on the Golden Gate Bridge, from the murder of a teenage gang leader in San Francisco to the drowning of an aged Japanese herb-gatherer, and from streets filled with juvenile runaways to the quietness of a mausoleum, Sharon investigates not only who committed the crimes but also what they say about or world toward the end of the twentieth century. The McCone Files is a distinguished book by a distinguished author.

Point Deception by Marcia Muller

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A new Marcia Muller book is always cause for celebration, and in this brooding, melancholy thriller she introduces a compelling new heroine. Rhoda "Rho" Swift is a deputy sheriff in California's fictional Soledad County. She is still tormented by a 13-year-old multiple murder in Cascade Canyon, where two counterculture families and their children were slain by an unknown killer. And when the body of an unidentified woman washes up in the waters off nearby Point Deception and two other local women go missing, Rhoda fears that the anniversary of the Canyon murders has unleashed another killing spree. She's not alone. The scared, suspicious townspeople are wondering the same thing. They're also unhappy that Guy Newberry, a New York writer whose bestselling books have exposed the secrets of other small towns, has turned up in Soledad trying to ferret out theirs. But Rho and Guy have something in common besides trying to learn why trouble has come back to Point Deception: they're both running from their own demons, and even the attraction that's starting to grow between them can't change the past.
Muller's intricate plotting and strong narrative flow have won a dedicated fan base for her Sharon McCone series, and both qualities are on full display here. She's skilled at evoking the landscape and atmosphere of her native California, and even her minor characters (like Wayne Gilardi, Rho's fellow cop, and Jack Swift, her father) are complex and interesting enough that their sketched-in back stories are worth telling. A terrific read from a master of the genre, Point Deception is Muller at her best.

Listen to the Silence by Marcia Muller

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Sharon McCone (A Walk Through the Fire, McCone & Friends, Both Ends of the Night, etc.) is used to solving problems. She's been doing it for over 20 years in Marcia Muller's pioneering and acclaimed series about the San Francisco PI. And thanks to her extended and occasionally dysfunctional family, she's no stranger to the consequences of revealing the occasional skeleton in the closet. But her latest case is both personal and deeply devastating. After her father dies, Sharon discovers documents that have been hidden for her entire life and they launch her on a voyage of self-discovery. Intent on exploring her own past, Sharon travels from a Shoshone Indian reservation in Montana to a ghost town in northern California, and she becomes involved in a larger story of deceit--and murder.
Writing a series means treading delicately on a high wire between repetition and revelation. Having once created a character who will voyage through two or 10 or 10,000 books, an author must decide what facets of the character's life will reappear as touchstones in each book, what items may be left by the wayside, how the past will inform the present, and how the present will indicate the future. With each new novel, the author reaches out to readers who may be comfortably familiar with the series and to readers who may be discovering it for the first time. There is no shortage of mystery writers whose series are immensely rewarding (think Sara Paretsky or Sue Grafton), but it's a difficult balancing act nonetheless. With Listen to the Silence, Marcia Muller seems to stumble slightly, just enough to leave readers wondering whether a safety net is in order. It's as if the burden of the past becomes too heavy for either character or author to support. Sharon seems a trifle flat, and Muller's integration of family and familiarity seems forced and abrupt. A first-time reader would do well to seek out earlier volumes in the series, but confirmed Muller fans will still relish the intensity with which the novel plunges into deeply unsettling territory.

A Wild and Lonely Place by Marcia Muller

Investigating a terrorist bombing at the consulate of an Arab Emirate, Sharon McCone thinks only of the million-dollar reward until the consul general's charming nine-year-old daughter disappears.

Edwin of the Iron Shoes by Marcia Muller

When an elderly antiques dealer is murdered, Muller's popular P.I. Sharon McCone follows a killer's trail to a museum where San Francisco's most elegant socialites gather.

Trophies and Dead Things by Marcia Muller

When a client of hers is murdered, detective Sharon McCone discovers that the dead man had disinherited his children and left his estate to four strangers, all with ties to a distant crime.

The Shape of Dread by Marcia Muller

Bobby Foster, car-hop at the chic Cafe Comedie, is going to the gas chamber since he's already confessed to the murder of Tracy Kostakos. The final appeal sends a #1 P.I. into the fractured world of Tracy's privileged family and the mind of a young comedienne who was not the good little girl they perceived.

Wolf in the Shadows : A Sharon McCone Mystery by Marcia Muller

Pushing aside the demands of her stressful career to search for her vanished lover, San Francisco P.I. Sharon McCone follows a series of clues along the Mexican border and comes face-to-face with personal issues and a cunning killer.

Eye of the Storm by Marcia Muller

On a pleasure trip to the Sacramento Delta, Sharon McCone encounters ghostly intervention, mysterious vandalism and murder on the site of a decrepit Victorian mansion. Another thrilling mystery featuring San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone.

Where Echoes Live by Marcia Muller

When a dispute over rights to a Nevada mine becomes violent, private investigator Sharon McCone investigates to discover who has targeting a Hong Kong-based company for murder and kidnapping.

Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes by Marcia Muller

Desperate to clear her mother's name from a brutal society murder committed in 1956, Judy Benedict calls upon Sharon McCone of the All Souls Legal Cooperative, a lawyer with little compassion for the accused.

Both Ends of the Night by Marcia Muller

Sharon McCone's flight instructor Matty confides that her boyfriend, John Seabrook, is missing and asks Sharon to find him. Shortly afterward, Matty is killed in an "accidental" plane crash. More determined than ever, Sharon discovers that, a decade earlier, Seabrook was placed in the Federal Protection Program after testifying against a man who has been missing for the last 10 years. Following sinister leads, Sharon travels to a frozen wilderness--and comes face-to-face with a cold killer.

While Other People Sleep by Marcia Muller

Amazon.com
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.

The Cheshire Cat's Eye : A Sharon McCone Mystery by Marcia Muller

Investigating her friend's murder, private eye Sharon McCone follows a trail into San Francisco's glamorous architectural community in search of a very valuable clue--a Tiffany lamp adorned with the grinning face of a Cheshire Cat.

A Walk Through the Fire by Marcia Muller

San Francisco investigator Sharon McCone takes a Hawaiian vacation . . . but not a break from sleuthing.

There's Something in a Sunday by Marcia Muller

Private eye Sharon McCone takes on a routine surveillance as a favor to a long-time client of her employer, the All-Souls Law Co-operative. Soon, however, the routine case turns into a murder investigation and leads to San Francisco's upper-class social activists.

The Broken Promise Land by Marcia Muller

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The 17th novel in Muller's series featuring San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone, The Broken Promised Land finds McCone assigned to provide security for Ricky Savage, a country-and-western superstar who happens to be McCone's brother-in-law. Savage has been the target of hate notes that are terrorizing the singer, his wife, and six kids. McCone's job is to turn up the culprit before Savage's tour to promote his new album collapses under the weight of his fear and paranoia.

Till the Butchers Cut Him Down by Marcia Muller

Now that private investigator Sharon McCone has struck out on her own, she needs all the clients she can get - even a shady character from her Berkeley days. T.J. "Suitcase" Gordon has made millions as a turnaround artist who creates profits and enemies while reviving failed businesses. From the moment he whisks McCone off in his private helicopter, complaining of death threats, her life will never be the same. After McCone saves Gordon from an explosion, he performs another kind of turnaround: he vanishes. Following the trail of Gordon's past leads McCone from a thriving Nevada tourist trap to a grim Pennsylvania steel town. She is desperate to find him - before a deadly confrontation with his California dreams blows them both out of the sky.

Double by Marcia Muller

Attending a private eye convention in her hometown, Sharon McCone catches up with old friends, until one is suddenly killed in a suspicious fall and recruits Wolf, the Nameless Detective, for her investigation.

Detective Duos by Marcia Muller (Editor)

Sleuthing twosomes have long made their mark on detective fiction. In this marvelous anthology, a real-life detective duo--married mystery novelists Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini--have brought together twenty-five of the best paired puzzle-solvers in short stories of remarkable range and scope.
From Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, to Agatha Christie's Mr. Satterthwaite and Harley Quin, to Patrick Quentin's Peter and Iris Duluth, to Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone and Rae Kelleher, Muller and Pronzini have gathered a treasure chest of stories featuring almost every possible variation on the types of partnership sleuths. Imitations of--and the original--Holmes and Watson tandem appear alongside husband and wife teams, two-woman duos, professional and amateur duos, multi-ethnic parings, and collaborations between two writers and their individual series characters. Spanning more than a century of crime fiction, including both classic tales by the greats of mystery writing as well as outstanding stories from contemporary writers, Detective Duos will captivate the sleuth in all of us.

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