Marcia Muller

Shot in the head by an unknown assailant, San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone finds herself trapped by locked-in syndrome: almost total paralysis but an alert, conscious mind. Since the late-night attack occurred at her agency's offices, the natural conclusion was that it was connected to one of the firm's cases. As Sharon lies in her hospital bed, furiously trying to break out of her body's prison and discover her attacker's identity, all the members of her agency fan out to find the reason why she was assaulted. Meanwhile, Sharon becomes a locked-in detective, evaluating the clues from her staff's separate investigations and discovering unsettling truths that could put her life in jeopardy again. As the case draws to a surprising and even shocking conclusion, Sharon's husband, Hy, must decide whether or not to surrender to his own violent past and exact fatal vengeance when the person responsible is identified.

Traumatized by a recent life-or-death investigation, Sharon McCone flees to her ranch in California's high desert country to contemplate her future. Deep depression shadows her days and nights, and a chance encounter with a troubled, highly secretive Native American woman begins to haunt her dreams. Even though she is determined not to investigate anything during her stay--and perhaps not ever again--McCone is drawn into the plight of the young woman and her dysfunctional family. A murder and traces of violence at a deserted resort lead her across the desert and into Nevada, and finally to a remote and isolated ranch, where danger lies closer that she expects and where her future and life itself may hang in the balance.

Sharon McCone is hired by her husband's security firm to track down "the ever-running man," a shadowy figure who has been leaving explosive devices at their various offices. She doesn't have to search for long. When McCone narrowly escapes an explosion at the security firm's San Francisco offices, she catches a glimpse of his retreating figure. The ever-running man is dangerously close--and anyone connected to the firm seems to be within his deadly range. To complicate matters, McCone is forced to question her intensely private husband, Hy, about his involvement in some of the firm's dark secrets. The history of corruption may jeopardize their marriage, but uncovering the secrets of the firm may be the only way she can save her husband's life, and her own.

The hunt is on for a cunning stalker who has been impersonating P.I. Sharon McCone with alarming results. What first seemed like a harmless party prank becomes a bizarre game of cat and mouse through the sinister streets of San Francisco as the impostor escalates her assault on McCone by invading her home, canceling her credit cards, and frightening her family with fraudulent phone calls. But when McCone is almost arrested for a crime the impostor committed, it's payback time with a vengeance--and a final face off with her doppelganger.

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

- Muller's McCone series has consistently received strong reviews from national publications, including the "New York Times Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, and USA TODAY, among others. "Dead Midnight was published by Warner in 7/03 and hit the "Los Angeles Times bestseller list, grossing over 76,000 copies.- Marcia Muller is the recipient of the Private live Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award. All the Sharon McCone novels and Muller's two previous stand-alones were Main Selections of The Mystery Guild.- "Wolf in the Shadows (Warner, 2001) was nominated for an Edgar Award and won the Anthony Boucher Award.

- Mutter's previous novel, "Cyanide Wells, was published in Mysterious Press hardcover in 7/03, and will be released in mass market simultaneous with THE DANGEROUS HOUR.- "Dead Midnight (Mysterious Press, 6/02) hit the "Los Angeles Times bestseller list, winning rave reviews from the "New York Times Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly (starred review), and "Booklist. The mass market edition was published in 7/03.- Muller's McCone series has consistently received strong reviews from national publications, including the "New York Times Book Review, USA TODAY, and the "Los Angeles Times, among others.- The McCone mysteries are being developed by Spring Creek Productions and CBS-TV into a pilot for a new television series.

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. Reprint. NYT.

In the latest installment in this critically acclaimed series, McCone is hired to investigate one of San Luis Obispo County's most puzzling cold cases. A generation ago, Laurel Greenwood, a housewife and artist, inexplicably vanished, leaving her young daughter alone. Now, new evidence suggests that the missing woman may have led a strange double life. But before McCone can penetrate the tangled mystery, she must first solve a second disappearance that of her client, the now grown daughter of Laurel Greenwood. The case, which forces Sharon to explore the darker sides of two marriages, comes uncomfortably close on the heels of her own marriage to Hy Ripinsky, and she begins to doubt the wisdom of her impulsive trip to the Reno wedding chapel.

The body of an woman washes up near Point Deception, California--a day after she was spotted near her broken-down car on the highway. Deputy Sheriff Rhoda Swift worries the woman's brutal rape and murder will resurrect fears from the unsolved massacre of two families 13 years before. When Rhoda investigates with journalist Guy Newberry, a shocking truth will test how far she is willing to go for justice. (May)

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. --Jane Adams

In her fifteenth case, private investigator Sharon McCone is hired by a shady, millionaire wheeler-dealer named T. J. ""Suitcase"" Gordon, whose numerous enemies quickly become her own. Reprint. NYT.