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Summary
Summary
Following a trail of death that leads back to the power politics of the fifties, San Francisco P.I. Sharon McCone searches for a killer who built a career on murder.
Summary
(13th in Sharon McCone series)Convicted of murder in 1956, Lis Benedict has served her long sentence and just been released from jail.Her daughter, Judy, convinced of her mother's innocence, persuades All Souls Legal Cooperative to reinvestigate her mother's case.Sharon McCone loves a challenge but has little affection for the cold and unlikable Lis.Then, suddenly, the woman in question is dead, a vicious threat is scrawled in red paint across the front of Sharon's house, and San Francisco's #1 P.I. is following a fresh trail of death that leads back to the '50s in search of a killer who has engineered a fatal cover-up and built a brilliant career on murder."A compelling mystery, offering crisp prose, a rich plot with a cornucopia of twists and turns and quirky characters." (Milwaukee Journal)
Author Notes
Marcia Muller, novelist, short-story writer and anthologist, was born in Detroit in 1944. She attended the University of Michigan, where she studied writing.
Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977) was her first book featuring Sharon McCone, a female private eye strong enough to compete in the male-dominated crime genre. In 1993, Muller was given the Private Eye Writers of America Life Achievement Award, and the following year her novel Wolf in the Shadows won the Anthony Boucher Award and was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Crime Novel.
Muller is the co-author of the Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery series with Bill Pronzini.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Marcia Muller, novelist, short-story writer and anthologist, was born in Detroit in 1944. She attended the University of Michigan, where she studied writing.
Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977) was her first book featuring Sharon McCone, a female private eye strong enough to compete in the male-dominated crime genre. In 1993, Muller was given the Private Eye Writers of America Life Achievement Award, and the following year her novel Wolf in the Shadows won the Anthony Boucher Award and was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Crime Novel.
Muller is the co-author of the Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery series with Bill Pronzini.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (8)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The 13th Sharon McCone mystery brings good luck to readers as Muller's veteran San Francisco PI explores crimes of passion and politics as they were played out in the Bay Area during the pre-Beat 1950s. In an intricate plot, McCone agrees to help lawyer Jack Stuart, her colleague at All Souls Legal Cooperative, build a case he will retry in the legal profession's Historical Tribunal. Stuart will defend Lisstet Benedict, who was recently released from prison after doing time for killing and mutilating her husband's young lover in 1956. Benedict was convicted on the testimony of her then-10-year-old daughter, now Stuart's lover, who hopes a new trial will turn up evidence, clearing her mother and exonerating herself. McCone finds herself emotionally drawn into the decades-old crime, especially to the murder scene--a now-uninhabited Seacliff mansion that then housed the Institute of North American Studies, a conservative think tank where Benedict's husband worked. Anti-Communist sentiment and personal betrayal figure large in the resolution of the 36-year-old crime and contemporary deaths that its revisiting inspire. Vintage Muller. Mystery Guild dual main selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book selection. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Another convoluted puzzle for San Francisco's Sharon McCone, investigator for All-Souls Legal Cooperative (Where Echoes Live, 1991, etc.). This one goes back to 1956, when Lis Benedict, wife of biochemist Vincent, was convicted of the grisly murder of her husband's young mistress, society playgirl Cordy McKittridge. Now released from jail, Lis is living with daughter Judy, who was a ten-year-old witness at her trial and soon after was adopted by prosecuting D.A. Joseph Stameroff, now an influential judge. Judy has persuaded All-Souls lawyer Jack Stuart to undertake a reinvestigation of the case, in the guise of a mock trial before a San Francisco institution called the Historical Tribunal. As Sharon explores the background and relationships of those long-ago years, ominous things start to happen in the here and now--nasty graffiti, threatening phone calls, and two deaths (at least one of them murder). It all ends in florid melodrama as the trial draws to a close. A heavily overembroidered plot; murky motives; too many characters with unconvincing total recall; glimmers of mysticism and lots of psychobabble--all add up to a dull, disjointed outing for an often engrossing author.
Booklist Review
Muller, now the acknowledged mentor to the current legions of female crime writers with tough female sleuths, takes her legal operative Sharon McCone back 36 years to the days when San Francisco was a wilder town than it is today. In 1956, the wife of a think-tank member was convicted of hacking a society girl to death and placing two rare lead coins on her eyelids. She pleaded innocent but was convicted largely on the testimony of her 10-year-old daughter. More than three decades later, with the woman now free, McCone is asked to reinvestigate the case and present any newfound evidence at a mock trial. What she finds is a lonely old woman frightened by crank phone calls and graffiti, a number of now-powerful men, and tales of casual sex, abortion, and multiple lovers. Muller is perhaps the least showy crime author around. Her protagonist, driven always into dangerous and emotional culs-de-sac, emerges as a pleasing composite of toughness and vulnerability without seeming to be either overstated or overwritten. As for Muller's handling of the locale--hills, mist, sourdough, and all--it is as fresh as ever. ~--Peter Robertson
Library Journal Review
In another lawyer-oriented mystery, established series investigator Sharon McCone uses her wiles to solve a 36-year-old slaying. The recently released woman convicted of killing a beautiful San Francisco socialite asks McCone to prepare her defense for a mock trial at the Historical Tribunal--a task that McCone approaches with some misgivings until phone threats, confrontations, and another murder prove that someone doesn't want the case reopened. Steadily mounting tension climaxes in the re-created trial. Sure to interest series regulars and even draw a few new fans. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/92. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The 13th Sharon McCone mystery brings good luck to readers as Muller's veteran San Francisco PI explores crimes of passion and politics as they were played out in the Bay Area during the pre-Beat 1950s. In an intricate plot, McCone agrees to help lawyer Jack Stuart, her colleague at All Souls Legal Cooperative, build a case he will retry in the legal profession's Historical Tribunal. Stuart will defend Lisstet Benedict, who was recently released from prison after doing time for killing and mutilating her husband's young lover in 1956. Benedict was convicted on the testimony of her then-10-year-old daughter, now Stuart's lover, who hopes a new trial will turn up evidence, clearing her mother and exonerating herself. McCone finds herself emotionally drawn into the decades-old crime, especially to the murder scene--a now-uninhabited Seacliff mansion that then housed the Institute of North American Studies, a conservative think tank where Benedict's husband worked. Anti-Communist sentiment and personal betrayal figure large in the resolution of the 36-year-old crime and contemporary deaths that its revisiting inspire. Vintage Muller. Mystery Guild dual main selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book selection. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Another convoluted puzzle for San Francisco's Sharon McCone, investigator for All-Souls Legal Cooperative (Where Echoes Live, 1991, etc.). This one goes back to 1956, when Lis Benedict, wife of biochemist Vincent, was convicted of the grisly murder of her husband's young mistress, society playgirl Cordy McKittridge. Now released from jail, Lis is living with daughter Judy, who was a ten-year-old witness at her trial and soon after was adopted by prosecuting D.A. Joseph Stameroff, now an influential judge. Judy has persuaded All-Souls lawyer Jack Stuart to undertake a reinvestigation of the case, in the guise of a mock trial before a San Francisco institution called the Historical Tribunal. As Sharon explores the background and relationships of those long-ago years, ominous things start to happen in the here and now--nasty graffiti, threatening phone calls, and two deaths (at least one of them murder). It all ends in florid melodrama as the trial draws to a close. A heavily overembroidered plot; murky motives; too many characters with unconvincing total recall; glimmers of mysticism and lots of psychobabble--all add up to a dull, disjointed outing for an often engrossing author.
Booklist Review
Muller, now the acknowledged mentor to the current legions of female crime writers with tough female sleuths, takes her legal operative Sharon McCone back 36 years to the days when San Francisco was a wilder town than it is today. In 1956, the wife of a think-tank member was convicted of hacking a society girl to death and placing two rare lead coins on her eyelids. She pleaded innocent but was convicted largely on the testimony of her 10-year-old daughter. More than three decades later, with the woman now free, McCone is asked to reinvestigate the case and present any newfound evidence at a mock trial. What she finds is a lonely old woman frightened by crank phone calls and graffiti, a number of now-powerful men, and tales of casual sex, abortion, and multiple lovers. Muller is perhaps the least showy crime author around. Her protagonist, driven always into dangerous and emotional culs-de-sac, emerges as a pleasing composite of toughness and vulnerability without seeming to be either overstated or overwritten. As for Muller's handling of the locale--hills, mist, sourdough, and all--it is as fresh as ever. ~--Peter Robertson
Library Journal Review
In another lawyer-oriented mystery, established series investigator Sharon McCone uses her wiles to solve a 36-year-old slaying. The recently released woman convicted of killing a beautiful San Francisco socialite asks McCone to prepare her defense for a mock trial at the Historical Tribunal--a task that McCone approaches with some misgivings until phone threats, confrontations, and another murder prove that someone doesn't want the case reopened. Steadily mounting tension climaxes in the re-created trial. Sure to interest series regulars and even draw a few new fans. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/92. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.