City of Whispers (Sharon McCone Series #28)

by Marcia Muller

Overview

Private eye Sharon McCone receives an e-mail asking for help from her emotionally disturbed half brother Darcy Blackhawk. She replies . . . but gets no response. As Sharon digs deeper, she discovers that Darcy sent his message from an Internet café in San Francisco, a city he's never been to before. Sensing that her brother is in terrible danger, Sharon begins a search for him throughout the city.

The investigation leads her to the body of a woman at the Palace of Fine Arts, where a witness had told her that Darcy was headed. Then, as she digs deeper, Sharon uncovers a connection to the unsolved murder of a young heiress to a multimillion-dollar banking fortune. Now Sharon must race to solve both murders and ensure her brother's safety, despite the imminent danger that lurks within her own family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781410441409
Publisher:	Gale Cengage Learning
Publication date:	11/02/2011
Series:	Sharon McCone Series , #28
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	389
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Marcia Muller is the author of more than thirty–five novels including twenty–five featuring PI Sharon McCone. She's been recognized with the 2005 Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, a Ridley Award, an American Mystery Award, and the Anthony Award.

Editorial Reviews

An e-mailed cry for help from Sharon McCone’s troubled half-brother, Darcy Blackhawk, sucks McCone into a treacherous vortex of madness, greed, and murder in bestseller Muller’s exciting 30th mystery starring the no-nonsense San Francisco PI (after 2010’s Coming Back). Though McCone, still recovering from the bullet to the brain that nearly killed her, has pressing problems of her own, she and nephew/operative Mick Savage must hustle to find the psychologically deteriorating Darcy, who’s disappeared. Their urgency increases as clues seem to link him with the unsolved strangling of a young heiress two years earlier—and a pair of fresher corpses. Alternating chapters narrated by different characters add to the suspense of the intricate plot, which propels readers through a San Francisco few tourists see—from Colma, the city’s necropolis, to the exclusive mansions of Sea Cliff—and to a harrowing, haunting denouement. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

In Muller's 29th Sharon McCone mystery, the San Francisco snoop searches for Darcy Blackhawk, her emotionally disturbed half-brother, and stumbles upon a two-year-old unsolved murder of a young heiress to a multimillion-dollar banking fortune. Finding Darcy becomes linked to solving the earlier crime. Muller uses her locations well, spotlighting places known only to locals, but perhaps tries to juggle too many subplots and characters, about half related to McCone. Laura Hicks meets the challenge of the narrators alternating from chapter to chapter, but her tone occasionally becomes somewhat strident for no obvious reason. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Muller, women detectives, and San Francisco culture. ["Don't even consider missing the latest Sharon McCone case," read the review of the Grand Central hc, LJ 10/1/11.—Ed.]—Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Lib.

Library Journal

Sharon McCone's 29th case is a search for her half brother.

McCone, who has two dysfunctional families to deal with—three if you count the father she recently located—receives an e-mail asking for help from her half brother Darcy Blackhawk, a druggie and petty thief who's been in and out of trouble all his life. To soothe Saskia, their birth mother, McCone asks her private-investigation agency's techno-nerd Mick Savage to troll San Francisco Internet cafes and see whether Darcy can be found. The trail focuses on a remark Darcy made about Gaby and a coral tree in a cemetery. Gaby, it turns out, has been dead two years, possibly a suicide but more probably a murder victim. Someone who's stashed Darcy away keeps sticking hyper-drug doses in his arms when he can't tell where some secret tapes have gone. McCone and Mick, hot on the trail, locate Gaby's legal guardian, now in sole charge of her inherited millions. They also identify The Four Musketeers, a group Gaby was involved with while doing volunteer work at a shelter, and learn that, slowly but surely, the quartet is being killed off. Mick will be attacked, McCone will be shot at and Hy Ripinsky, McCone's husband, will thwart a ransom demand before Darcy is once more settled in a comfy psych ward for detoxing.

A glib but neatly plotted adventure from an author whose heroine has almost as many relatives (Coming Back,2010, etc.) as fans.

Kirkus Reviews