Kirkus Review
Lawyer-sleuth Sharon McCone (Games to Keep the Dark Away), answering a call for help from sister Patsy, forsakes her usual San Francisco scene for tiny Appleby Island in the Sacramento Delta. Patsy, her three out-of-wedlock children by various fathers, her new lover, Evans Newhouse, and several others are trying to restore Appleby mansion--the island's only habitation--as a hotel and marina. But they're being plagued by a series of minor, scary incidents, and there's much talk of the legend of Crazy Alf, an Indian living there when William Appleby arrived to make his fortune growing pears, and then strung up by him in the 1860's. Now at the mansion, a mixture of splendor and sloth, Sharon meets the project's backer, pudgy, nervous Neal Oliver; unfriendly business-manager Angela Won; contractor Denny Kleinschmidt; marina manager Stephanie Jorgenson, and Max Shorkey, who runs the little island ferry. Neal's cool, competent brother Sam arrives soon after. Meanwhile, the pranks--ghostly figures, a kind of voodoo doll, faces at windows, an invasion of roaches, broken boats--escalate in violence, ending with a pair of murders--all in the midst of raging storms. Sharon finds some answers in the unrevamped library's diaries and letters and, with some help from young nephew Andrew, at last identifies the culprit. Creaky pacing, too much weather, dull characters, dull conversation, and an un-surprising denouement make this one of Muller's lesser efforts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Kirkus Review
Lawyer-sleuth Sharon McCone (Games to Keep the Dark Away), answering a call for help from sister Patsy, forsakes her usual San Francisco scene for tiny Appleby Island in the Sacramento Delta. Patsy, her three out-of-wedlock children by various fathers, her new lover, Evans Newhouse, and several others are trying to restore Appleby mansion--the island's only habitation--as a hotel and marina. But they're being plagued by a series of minor, scary incidents, and there's much talk of the legend of Crazy Alf, an Indian living there when William Appleby arrived to make his fortune growing pears, and then strung up by him in the 1860's. Now at the mansion, a mixture of splendor and sloth, Sharon meets the project's backer, pudgy, nervous Neal Oliver; unfriendly business-manager Angela Won; contractor Denny Kleinschmidt; marina manager Stephanie Jorgenson, and Max Shorkey, who runs the little island ferry. Neal's cool, competent brother Sam arrives soon after. Meanwhile, the pranks--ghostly figures, a kind of voodoo doll, faces at windows, an invasion of roaches, broken boats--escalate in violence, ending with a pair of murders--all in the midst of raging storms. Sharon finds some answers in the unrevamped library's diaries and letters and, with some help from young nephew Andrew, at last identifies the culprit. Creaky pacing, too much weather, dull characters, dull conversation, and an un-surprising denouement make this one of Muller's lesser efforts. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.