Publisher's Weekly Review
Fans of hard-boiled PI Sharon McCone will welcome the first story collection from MWA Grand Master Muller, who shows she's just as adept at writing western and ghost tales as detective fiction. Several of the 19 selections feature McCone or her engaging apprentice, Rae Kelleher. In the harrowing title story, McCone seeks a mentally disturbed man trapped somewhere in the rubble of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. The volume's best tale, "The Wall," focuses on the search for a missing teenager and the clues Kelleher unearths in a massive collage on the girl's bedroom wall. Notable among the western tales, mostly set in turn-of-the-20th-century California, is "The Indian Witch," about a boy's brief encounter with a reclusive Native American woman. Muller's penchant for social commentary may strike some readers as too politically correct, but all will appreciate her gift for good storytelling. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In this collection, acclaimed mystery novelist Muller (she holds the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, the Private Eye Writers of America Life Achievement Award, and the Anthony Boucher Award) has assembled 30 years' worth of her short fiction, including vignettes, traditional short stories, and one novella. The 19 stories range from horror tales and westerns to a variety of crime fiction, including a Muller trademark, place mysteries, in which the action is confined to and defined by its setting, whether a Victorian home, or a decrepit hotel, or Fort Point, at the southern base of the Golden Gate Bridge. The novella, The Wall, is a masterpiece of condensed place the discovery of a missing teen girl hinges on the private eye's reading of the clues on the girl's bedroom bulletin board. The various investigators at the All Souls Legal Cooperative take star turns doing first-person narratives in several gripping mysteries.Wide-ranging and satisfying, with an introduction by the author that gives some fascinating insight into her work methods and sources of inspiration.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2007 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Collected here are 19 short stories from Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Muller, all previously published in various magazines and anthologies from 1982 to 2003. Offering a variety of Muller's best work in the short story genre, the anthology includes six tales featuring Sharon McCone, the protagonist of Muller's long-running hard-boiled PI series, one story featuring McCone and Wolf (husband Bill Pronzini's PI character), and three stories told from the viewpoint of McCone associates (two with Rae Kelleher and one with Ted Smalley). In addition, there are a variety of mysteries and tales of psychological suspense, along with one of Muller's award-winning Westerns. Fans will be interested in "The Cyaniders," which gives the backstory for events that take place in her Soledad County series novel Cyanide Wells. In the introduction, Muller details the inspiration for several of the stories and also discusses her writing process over the years, which will interest her many fans and writing students. For all mystery and short story collections. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 12/06; see Muller's The Ever-Running Man: A Sharon McCone Mystery, reviewed above.]-Beth Lindsay, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.