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Sharon McCone #13
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Successful in her investigative work for All Souls Legal Cooperative, happy with her newly renovated house, and feeling somewhat more secure in her relationship with the mysterious environmental activist, Hy Ripinsky, Sharon is shocked to find herself suddenly faced with a wrenching ultimatum. No longer a small, informal co-op, All Souls has grown. New legal partners, exasperated with Sharon's free-wheeling ways, want to kick her upstairs with a raise, perks, and a "career opportunity" that will chain her to a desk forever. Offered a take-it-or-leave-it deal, Sharon is in turmoil. And to make matters worse, Hy has disappeared. His abandoned plane, wrecked rental car, and a road map point to RKI, a firm of international security consultants with a reputation for questionable, unorthodox tactics and clients engaged in controversial research. Sharon discovers that they hired Hy as a free-lance operative and that they, too, are looking for him. Determined to find out what has happened, Sharon pushes aside her career concerns at All Souls and plunges into a search that will force her to take unlikely sanctuary in her abandoned San Diego childhood home and find and unexpected ally in her wild, unpredictable brother John. From the drive-by hiring hall for illegal aliens in Imperial Beach to an opulent villa on the Mexican coast, she will track down every clue in a complex plot that builds to a breathtaking climax on the treacherous canyon trails that lead back across the border. There, in a no-man's-land where terrified pollos defy la migra in a desperate bid for freedom...and where decisions won't wait, Sharon must make the tough choices that put her own life, her own freedom, and everythingshe holds dear at deadly risk.
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
111 people are currently reading
403 people want to read
About the author
Marcia Muller
165 books723 followersMarcia Muller is an American author of mystery and thriller novels.
Muller has written many novels featuring her Sharon McCone female private detective character. Vanishing Point won the Shamus Award for Best P.I. Novel. Muller had been nominated for the Shamus Award four times previously.
In 2005, Muller was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master award.
She was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, and graduated in English from the University of Michigan and worked as a journalist at Sunset magazine. She is married to detective fiction author Bill Pronzini with whom she has collaborated on several novels.
Muller has written many novels featuring her Sharon McCone female private detective character. Vanishing Point won the Shamus Award for Best P.I. Novel. Muller had been nominated for the Shamus Award four times previously.
In 2005, Muller was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master award.
She was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, and graduated in English from the University of Michigan and worked as a journalist at Sunset magazine. She is married to detective fiction author Bill Pronzini with whom she has collaborated on several novels.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
July 20, 2019
I’ve read quite a few of Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone private detective novels, but I recently discovered that I’ve missed more than I thought. So I discovered number 13 in the series,
Wolf in the Shadows
. It was a little strange reading a book that takes place in 1994, but that’s when it was written. Still, parts of it could be happening today – there are people worried about la migra (immigration) as they are smuggled to the border by coyotes. There is a kidnapping, murder...things we still have today. Pay phones? Not so much.
It’s been quite a while since I have read a Sharon McCone book, but she is just as I remembered. She still works for All Souls Collective as an investigator, except now the group has gotten larger and more sophisticated. They want Shar to take a promotion, being more of a supervisor, which is not exactly in her wheelhouse. She loves the hands-on work of detective work and isn’t sure she can see herself sitting at a desk.
When she learns that her lover, Hy Ripinsky, has disappeared while on an unspecified job, she approaches his employer and is hired to find him. Soon she is up to her ear lobes in mystery and trouble as she eventually learns that a man was kidnapped and fears that Hy may be involved – or worse.
As I’ve come to expect in these adventures, McCone shows herself to be a quick thinker and savvy problem solver. No stranger to danger, she uses every tool she has to find the answers she must have. She also has some very sisterly exchanges with her brother John, who proves to be a big help to her along the way. At times it’s hard to know whom to trust and who might be lurking behind the nearest rock. Will Sharon McCone come out of this unscathed? What about the kidnap victim and the culprits? And is the company that hired her going to honor its agreement with her? Whose side are they really on? And what happened to Ripinsky? Does it all work out? Finally, what happens with Shar and All Souls? Will she be seeking new employment, or will she be staying at All Souls in some shape or form?
This was quite a ride! Now I have a few more scattered here and there to catch up with before I am current with this series. I had no idea! This is going to be fun!
4 stars
It’s been quite a while since I have read a Sharon McCone book, but she is just as I remembered. She still works for All Souls Collective as an investigator, except now the group has gotten larger and more sophisticated. They want Shar to take a promotion, being more of a supervisor, which is not exactly in her wheelhouse. She loves the hands-on work of detective work and isn’t sure she can see herself sitting at a desk.
When she learns that her lover, Hy Ripinsky, has disappeared while on an unspecified job, she approaches his employer and is hired to find him. Soon she is up to her ear lobes in mystery and trouble as she eventually learns that a man was kidnapped and fears that Hy may be involved – or worse.
As I’ve come to expect in these adventures, McCone shows herself to be a quick thinker and savvy problem solver. No stranger to danger, she uses every tool she has to find the answers she must have. She also has some very sisterly exchanges with her brother John, who proves to be a big help to her along the way. At times it’s hard to know whom to trust and who might be lurking behind the nearest rock. Will Sharon McCone come out of this unscathed? What about the kidnap victim and the culprits? And is the company that hired her going to honor its agreement with her? Whose side are they really on? And what happened to Ripinsky? Does it all work out? Finally, what happens with Shar and All Souls? Will she be seeking new employment, or will she be staying at All Souls in some shape or form?
This was quite a ride! Now I have a few more scattered here and there to catch up with before I am current with this series. I had no idea! This is going to be fun!
4 stars
August 19, 2018
Still chugging along with revisiting the Sharon McCone series and this is a book I don't remember at all from my previous reading/listening some 20+ years ago. While I've always appreciated that Muller allows her female protagonist to have a love life, I'll be honest and say I've always been indifferent on Hy as a character. And this book probably helps explain why since OMG JUST TELL HER ABOUT YOUR PAST ALREADY SHE FRICKIN' DESERVES IT AFTER THE CRAP SHE GOES THROUGH IN THIS BOOK! Ahem. Anyway, yes I have feelings on the matter.
The tension Muller creates in this story is really fantastic, and it's amazing how very little has changed around the subject of immigration in the US. This should have read as a time capsule and sadly....did not. One of the stronger books in the series so far.
The tension Muller creates in this story is really fantastic, and it's amazing how very little has changed around the subject of immigration in the US. This should have read as a time capsule and sadly....did not. One of the stronger books in the series so far.
January 21, 2014
#14 in the Sharon McCone series. This novel appears to mark a watershed for author Muller. The book was the winner of the 1994 Anthony Award for Best Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar, Shamus, and Dilys awards. Sharon's long time legal cooperative employer is changing and wants Sharon to assume a position she doesn't want - although she also doesn't want to quit All Souls. Her lover Hy Ripinsky has disappeared and as she searches for him, she again questions their relationship. The author photo on the book jacket caught my eye, Marcia Muller adopted a shorter, more attractive and sophisticated hair style. A little research revealed that she had also just married fellow author Bill Pronzini. Quite a year.
Sharon McCone series - On a case that winds through her personal history, Sharon hides out in her childhood home near San Diego and crosses Mexican border to end up facing a future quite different than what she might have predicted. All Souls Legal Cooperative, long Sharon's employer, is assuming a corporate air; the partners want their unconventional investigator to move into an administrative position. At the same time, her lover Hy Ripinsky disappears. She traces him to a slick security firm for whom he apparently agreed to deliver the $2 million ransom to the abductors of the CEO of a biotech company. The security outfit is convinced Hy has stolen the ransom; Sharon, unsure of anything, says she'll find him and get back the money. Evading their suspicious operatives and the cops, she infiltrates southern California's community of illegals, makes some valuable friends and fierce enemies and learns the extent of her own resources.
Sharon McCone series - On a case that winds through her personal history, Sharon hides out in her childhood home near San Diego and crosses Mexican border to end up facing a future quite different than what she might have predicted. All Souls Legal Cooperative, long Sharon's employer, is assuming a corporate air; the partners want their unconventional investigator to move into an administrative position. At the same time, her lover Hy Ripinsky disappears. She traces him to a slick security firm for whom he apparently agreed to deliver the $2 million ransom to the abductors of the CEO of a biotech company. The security outfit is convinced Hy has stolen the ransom; Sharon, unsure of anything, says she'll find him and get back the money. Evading their suspicious operatives and the cops, she infiltrates southern California's community of illegals, makes some valuable friends and fierce enemies and learns the extent of her own resources.
July 28, 2023
Another great Sharon McCone installment.
January 27, 2024
Sharon McCone finds herself in Mexico searching for her missing lover, Hy. With the help of her brother and a series of unlikely allies, she uncovers a twisted kidnapping plot while dealing with personal issues. A good read.
September 4, 2021
Entertaining listening 🔰😀
Another will written romantic thriller mystery adventure in the Sharon McCone Series book 13with interesting and will developed characters. The story line is set in Southern California and Mexico where murder and kidnapping takes place. Sharon tracks down the murder and kidnapper in Mexico and the fun begins. I would recommend this series to readers of mysteries. Enjoy the adventure of reading or listening 🔰 2021 😯🏡
Another will written romantic thriller mystery adventure in the Sharon McCone Series book 13with interesting and will developed characters. The story line is set in Southern California and Mexico where murder and kidnapping takes place. Sharon tracks down the murder and kidnapper in Mexico and the fun begins. I would recommend this series to readers of mysteries. Enjoy the adventure of reading or listening 🔰 2021 😯🏡
November 10, 2016
A fast-paced, straight forward action novel. Sharon McCone's position at All Souls is threatened just as her lover Hy Ripinsky goes missing. In her search for answers to Hy's disappearance, Sharon finds herself involved with Mexican crime bosses, illegal immigration, and a corporate kidnapping. The plot was straightforward and fast-moving, and I really enjoyed it!
September 19, 2017
While the story is complex and reasonably inventive, it also seems a bit formulaic and stale. I don't see a lot of personality in the Sharon McCone in this volume in the series. Yes, a bit ornery and certainly risk-taking, but that is pretty basic for this kind of caper story.
The plot moves well, but it feels like a movie I would not have gone to see. My biggest problem with the story here is that parts of it struck me as improbable. (I can't summarize them without spoilers).
Diverting, yes, but not a sustaining read. I agree with the reader who suggests that there are a lot of other more compelling female P.I.s.
Meanwhile, the series is still appearing and seems to be up to number thirty-three!
The plot moves well, but it feels like a movie I would not have gone to see. My biggest problem with the story here is that parts of it struck me as improbable. (I can't summarize them without spoilers).
Diverting, yes, but not a sustaining read. I agree with the reader who suggests that there are a lot of other more compelling female P.I.s.
Meanwhile, the series is still appearing and seems to be up to number thirty-three!
October 4, 2020
Sharon McCone #13. Read by Bernadette Dunne. 1993. Suddenly, everything changes. Alls Souls Legal Coop offers Sharon an administrative, desk job. Mostly, they want to pin her down to where they know where she is. Never mind she is greatly skilled at investigative case solving. At the same time, Hy Ripinsky, current romantic attraction, disappears, as he embarks on a two million dollar kidnapping case. Sharon quickly decides that she is going after Hy. The adventure is risky, dangerous and life changing. There are a lot of bad people involved as well as people who make poor choices about the ones they so called loved. The tracking of information takes Sharon into Tijuana and back into the US a few times. Will she find Hy? and what about the kidnapping caper?
July 24, 2021
I have enjoyed several in this series already, most of them read many years ago. Since Sue Grafton died, I have needed a "new" PI with a similar flavor to Kinsey Milhone and have gotten back into reading Marcia Muller. This book was pretty good. I finished it. We see more of Hy Ripinsky, her lover, in this one, and there's some turmoil at All Soul's Co-op. The ending was excellent - but I was a bit lost during much of the middle of it and it seemed overly detailed in spots and overly convoluted in others, but that could just be me. I will definitely read more by this author, though.
October 5, 2018
This book starts on the same day that PENNIES ON A DEAD WOMEN'S EYES ended. Hy is missing and Sharon decides to track him down. Meanwhile she is also being asked by All Souls to take on a new position which would require more desk work. The mystery -- beyond finding Hy-- involves the kidnapping of one of RKI's clients. For me, the mystery wasn't as important as the relationships-- with Hy, with Sharon's brother John, and to some degree with All Souls.
May 19, 2022
Wolf in the shadows by Maria Vale.
The Legend of All Wolves Book 5.
A hero with a haunted pastA shifter heroine with a lot to learn about being part of the PackDark secrets that could destroy everything they love.
A good read with good characters. I did find this slow but readable. 3*.
The Legend of All Wolves Book 5.
A hero with a haunted pastA shifter heroine with a lot to learn about being part of the PackDark secrets that could destroy everything they love.
A good read with good characters. I did find this slow but readable. 3*.
April 23, 2024
I just couldn't stay engaged with this one. Ten minutes after I deleted it, I struggled to remember its name. Ten minutes! Wow!
It won the Anthony the year it was published. Something's truly wrong with me as a reader.
It won the Anthony the year it was published. Something's truly wrong with me as a reader.
September 14, 2025
I loved this book! The recent Sharon McCone books I’ve read have had a tendency to get bogged down in the middle, becoming a bit tedious. But this one moved along perfectly, with the suspense mounting continually.
August 1, 2018
scary but interesting.
October 8, 2018
Sharon McCone sure has lots of boyfriends and Sharon has to rescue all of them (in different books).
October 25, 2018
Sharon McCone gets involved in a kidnapping situation when she goes looking for her boyfriend who has gone missing. It takes her to San Diego and Baja with many suspenseful moments.
February 5, 2019
Olipa mielenkiintoinen ja jännittävä opus!!
April 23, 2019
Read 2007
April 27, 2020
Marcia Muller never disappoints. Love the characters, dialogue, plot, settings.
November 12, 2020
Maybe I’ve read too many in this series. I felt this one kind of dragged.
July 2, 2021
They are so much better with a copy editor. And now a love interest that appreciates her.
Read
September 13, 2022Competent.
December 20, 2025
A rather complicated plot involving evil corporate entities. Shar goes off in search of Hy. Ransoms and kidnapping.
July 27, 2019
Another good story. Fills in some of the blanks in Hy's story. Quite a couple of brave people.
May 31, 2017
Marcia Muller is one of those authors who is married to another author. Amazing, right? Her husband also writes mystery, suspense and thrillers. In fact, I have read one or two of his books and they were really good. Which makes me wonder, does being married to another author who writes the same genre make Miss Muller's writing process easier or not? Does she discuss with her husband her plots and how to improve them? Do they steal ideas from each other? Or borrow? I am just curious how it's like being married to another talented author.
I have read a Sharon McCone mystery before. There are 32 books in this series. I have read Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes and A Walk Through the Fire. Or I think I might have read more. I am not sure. I have thing for lady detectives or PI. I just love them. Mrs. Pollifax is right on the top of my list. I just love strong and talented women making it big in a man's world. I would like to be one--not a PI or detective but make it big in a world dominated more by men like business, baking and leadership. I would like to be a successful businesswoman, a talented pastry baker and a strong and fair leader worthy of emulation.
Sharon McCone is a very successful PI in California. She has solved a lot of cases and is one of the most successful women who penetrated this manly business of detecting or investigation. This story is more personal than any cases she has handled. Too personal because this involved the mysterious disappearance of her environmental activist boyfriend Hy Ripinski. With the danger of losing her job for going off to the unknown without telling her boss, so much more is at stake here for McCone. She had to listen attentively to her instincts and fully trust her gut. Will she succeed?
Like all PI's stories, it would not do without dead bodies dropping or a person missing. This time, McCone had to rub elbows with the lowlifes and goons. She had to play on the wrong side of the court to be able to get the information she needed to find her boyfriend. She had to play dirty also in order to survive. She had to outwit and outplay the enemy without them having any clue. And true to her all her successes in her job and her persistence, with help from some shady characters, she was able find what she was looking for and get to the bottom of the whole deal.
I think there was a part in the story where there was a lull. A sort of part that was not so engrossing to read. I might have stopped reading or I have might brushed through it just to get to the next chapter. Fortunately the speed picked up and all hell broke loose. It was good all after that. The hint of danger was so alive throughout the story which was even more intensified by the desert landscape and the baying of the wolves in the background.
I give the book 4/5 desert cacti. This was an enjoyable read. Like any books by Murcia Muller or any of my favorite mystery authors, I have always been filled with excitement every time I have any of their works in my hand. I am so fortunate to have discovered these great authors that not many in my generation or the current one have come to know. I hope younger people will come to love their stories as much as I do. This is my way of letting them know that there are a lot of great authors who are not the contemporaries of Colleen Hoover and other YA authors that they need to meet. And that mysteries never grow old or will I ever tire of them.
Well, we all harbored wolves in the shadows of our psyches, didn't we? And mine were bound to be fiercer, more bloodthirsty than most. But what happened when one's wolf assumed human form?
- Marcia Muller, Wolf in the Shadows -
I have read a Sharon McCone mystery before. There are 32 books in this series. I have read Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes and A Walk Through the Fire. Or I think I might have read more. I am not sure. I have thing for lady detectives or PI. I just love them. Mrs. Pollifax is right on the top of my list. I just love strong and talented women making it big in a man's world. I would like to be one--not a PI or detective but make it big in a world dominated more by men like business, baking and leadership. I would like to be a successful businesswoman, a talented pastry baker and a strong and fair leader worthy of emulation.
Sharon McCone is a very successful PI in California. She has solved a lot of cases and is one of the most successful women who penetrated this manly business of detecting or investigation. This story is more personal than any cases she has handled. Too personal because this involved the mysterious disappearance of her environmental activist boyfriend Hy Ripinski. With the danger of losing her job for going off to the unknown without telling her boss, so much more is at stake here for McCone. She had to listen attentively to her instincts and fully trust her gut. Will she succeed?
Like all PI's stories, it would not do without dead bodies dropping or a person missing. This time, McCone had to rub elbows with the lowlifes and goons. She had to play on the wrong side of the court to be able to get the information she needed to find her boyfriend. She had to play dirty also in order to survive. She had to outwit and outplay the enemy without them having any clue. And true to her all her successes in her job and her persistence, with help from some shady characters, she was able find what she was looking for and get to the bottom of the whole deal.
I think there was a part in the story where there was a lull. A sort of part that was not so engrossing to read. I might have stopped reading or I have might brushed through it just to get to the next chapter. Fortunately the speed picked up and all hell broke loose. It was good all after that. The hint of danger was so alive throughout the story which was even more intensified by the desert landscape and the baying of the wolves in the background.
I give the book 4/5 desert cacti. This was an enjoyable read. Like any books by Murcia Muller or any of my favorite mystery authors, I have always been filled with excitement every time I have any of their works in my hand. I am so fortunate to have discovered these great authors that not many in my generation or the current one have come to know. I hope younger people will come to love their stories as much as I do. This is my way of letting them know that there are a lot of great authors who are not the contemporaries of Colleen Hoover and other YA authors that they need to meet. And that mysteries never grow old or will I ever tire of them.
Well, we all harbored wolves in the shadows of our psyches, didn't we? And mine were bound to be fiercer, more bloodthirsty than most. But what happened when one's wolf assumed human form?
- Marcia Muller, Wolf in the Shadows -
November 26, 2012
As the series has progressed, P.I. Sharon McCone has been very changed by her job. Initially, the excitement of near death experiences and discovering what lies hidden in the secret depths of people's lives drove her from case to case, each day a thrill to her. But as the years of meeting criminals and finding bodies has mounted, she has become more depressed and the thrill more mechanical, a matter of adrenalin instead of the intellectual joy of helping people. Finally, crossing a rubicon moment by shooting a bad guy to death a few books back forced her to realize she wasn't the young woman she was a decade ago. When we were introduced to her, her boyfriend was a cop. Now, her new lover Hy Ripinsky is as dark and tainted as McCone is, both still good guys but definitely self-aware they can kill people in the doing of their jobs. The decade has seen her change from someone who was a good investigator to someone who now is a top operative, capable of the most intricate cons and black operations, as well as investigations. She has accepted this, albeit with sadness and regret.
This adventure stretches McCone. She must deal with people and situations that are beyond anything she has become familiar with, mainly the territory of Northern California. When her new mystery man, Hy, disappears, McCone knows there is something seriously wrong. Her fear drives her to venture into his world of ex-military security ops, and she follows his trail into the world of people smuggling from Mexico, the kidnapping of a rich businessman and working without any backup. Very quickly, we learn she is up to the challenge of the tougher, harder world that Hy inhabits.
Everything is going to change.
This adventure stretches McCone. She must deal with people and situations that are beyond anything she has become familiar with, mainly the territory of Northern California. When her new mystery man, Hy, disappears, McCone knows there is something seriously wrong. Her fear drives her to venture into his world of ex-military security ops, and she follows his trail into the world of people smuggling from Mexico, the kidnapping of a rich businessman and working without any backup. Very quickly, we learn she is up to the challenge of the tougher, harder world that Hy inhabits.
Everything is going to change.
July 24, 2010
Good Plot, but most all the action quite implausible...
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.
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.
September 2, 2024
PI Sharon McCone is facing decisions to be made and that at first seems awfully hard for her. First are the changes that are happening at her place of business, All Souls Legal Cooperative. There are changes afoot in the cooperative, some that she is not sure she can deal with, including a promotion with ties that bind for the independent woman.
And one of those things that may change are the little side jobs that she takes on, including the current one in which she is tracking Hy Ripinsky, her lover and environmental activist who has disappeared without a word. She's mad at him but also worried and she is unlikely to be able to settle down to what will be her future without resolving what has happened with him.
So her investigation finds more than one missing man: a kidnapping and murder, and for this PI, it is an issue she is ready to face.
I have not been terribly positive about Sharon McCone. Muller has saddled her with not only a heritage that was beaten to death in the earlier books but a truly wacky family and love life. In 13 books, McCone has been attracted and dropped a homicide detective and a radio DJ; she's faced the disillusion of her parent's marriage and the various antics of her siblings, none of whom seemed particularly mature. But in this book, there were glimmers that Muller has settled down with her character and a focus on the action, rather than trying to make McCone unique, i.e., oddball and annoying. Maybe she thought McCone had to come to some realization of who she was, but the people around her seemed to mature a bit as well. For at least this one reader, this is refreshing.
And one of those things that may change are the little side jobs that she takes on, including the current one in which she is tracking Hy Ripinsky, her lover and environmental activist who has disappeared without a word. She's mad at him but also worried and she is unlikely to be able to settle down to what will be her future without resolving what has happened with him.
So her investigation finds more than one missing man: a kidnapping and murder, and for this PI, it is an issue she is ready to face.
I have not been terribly positive about Sharon McCone. Muller has saddled her with not only a heritage that was beaten to death in the earlier books but a truly wacky family and love life. In 13 books, McCone has been attracted and dropped a homicide detective and a radio DJ; she's faced the disillusion of her parent's marriage and the various antics of her siblings, none of whom seemed particularly mature. But in this book, there were glimmers that Muller has settled down with her character and a focus on the action, rather than trying to make McCone unique, i.e., oddball and annoying. Maybe she thought McCone had to come to some realization of who she was, but the people around her seemed to mature a bit as well. For at least this one reader, this is refreshing.
July 6, 2008
WOLF IN THE SHADOWS - Ex
Muller, Marcia - 14th in series
On a case that winds through her personal history, San Francisco investigator Sharon McCone hides out in her childhood home near San Diego and crosses, not always legally, the U.S.-Mexican border to end up facing a future quite different than what she--or we--might have predicted. All Souls Legal Cooperative, long Sharon's employer, is assuming a corporate air; the partners want their unconventional investigator to move into a more administrative position.
At the same time, her lover Hy Ripinsky disappears. She traces him to a slick security firm for whom he apparently agreed to deliver the $2 million ransom to the abductors of the CEO of a biotech company about to market a cancer drug. The drug, extracted from dolphin cartilage, has roused the fear and ire of environmentalist groups with whom Hy had once been associated.
The high-tech security outfit is convinced Hy has stolen the ransom; Sharon, unsure of anything, says she'll find him and get back the money. Evading their suspicious operatives and the cops, she infiltrates southern California's community of illegals, makes some valuable friends and fierce enemies and learns in a final, breathtaking confrontation the full extent of her own resources.
1994 Top Reads List - this is really a step forward in Muller's writing.
Muller, Marcia - 14th in series
On a case that winds through her personal history, San Francisco investigator Sharon McCone hides out in her childhood home near San Diego and crosses, not always legally, the U.S.-Mexican border to end up facing a future quite different than what she--or we--might have predicted. All Souls Legal Cooperative, long Sharon's employer, is assuming a corporate air; the partners want their unconventional investigator to move into a more administrative position.
At the same time, her lover Hy Ripinsky disappears. She traces him to a slick security firm for whom he apparently agreed to deliver the $2 million ransom to the abductors of the CEO of a biotech company about to market a cancer drug. The drug, extracted from dolphin cartilage, has roused the fear and ire of environmentalist groups with whom Hy had once been associated.
The high-tech security outfit is convinced Hy has stolen the ransom; Sharon, unsure of anything, says she'll find him and get back the money. Evading their suspicious operatives and the cops, she infiltrates southern California's community of illegals, makes some valuable friends and fierce enemies and learns in a final, breathtaking confrontation the full extent of her own resources.
1994 Top Reads List - this is really a step forward in Muller's writing.
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