Marcia Muller – författare

Sharon McCone has just left the All-Souls Legal Cooperative and opened her own business when an eccentric friend from her UC-Berkeley days, who now specializes in rescuing failing corporations, asks her to find out who is sabotaging his efforts to save a San Francisco shipping firm and threatening his life. T. J. "Suitcase" Gordon reports some odd accidents, but McCone suspects that he might be be paranoid until there is a tragic death close to him. Unearthing possible revenge motives and another murder victim, she draws the killer''s malevolent attention to herself back in San Francisco...

For a Nevada wedding, the nuptials between Sharon McCone and sexy fellow investigator Hy Ripinsky are downright tasteful: no Elvis impersonators, no plastic flowers, no embarrassing last-minute bailout by a bride well known for her phobia to commitment. This time, McCone has displayed the smarts she uses in her successful detective firm and chosen a guy who respects her as a professional and shares her passions. But living together in her beloved little house on Church Street may be another matter entirely, especially when Hy suggests they need a bigger place.

The looming crisis of who will compromise first is delayed when Hy heads out of town on business and McCone dives into one of her most baffling cases yet—the disappearance of Laurel Greenwood, who vanished twenty-two years before without a trace. Laurel’s grown-up daughter is desperately seeking closure and wants McCone to find out the fate of the young mother and artist who never returned from a day of landscape painting in a Central California coastal town.

The case is cold, and the evidence McCone begins uncovering is chilling. Secrets kept for two decades now emerge to create a portrait of a woman who’s perfect on the surface and anything but a paragon beneath it. And when someone takes potshots at McCone to scare her into dropping her inquiries, the detective’s resolve hardens. She intends to uncover the truth—the whole truth—even when it awakens her suspicions that the bonds of marriage can easily become chains, and that escaping them may lead to desperate acts…or murderous ones.

After Sharon McCone''s father dies of a sudden heart attack, she immediately heads to San Diego to scatter his ashes and clear out his house. In a box of legal papers, she finds a 1959 petition for adoption of a child called Baby Girl Smith—an infant who, from the day of adoption, has been known as Sharon Elizabeth McCone.

No one in Sharon''s family will discuss the adoption, so she begins her own search for the truth. Her quest takes her deep into Indian country, to the Flathead Reservation in Montana. When her birth mother is critically injured in a hit-and-run accident, Sharon begins to understand that her search has caused a resurgence of old hatreds and fueled present-day violence.

Someone is bent on getting revenge on Ricky Savage, Sharon McCone''s brother-in-law and a two-time Grammy Award-winning country singer. The danger escalates as Sharon realizes that more than one person has been playing underhanded games—and that the music industry is truly a broken promise land.

The extraordinarily popular Sharon McCone, the female private eye who showed Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, and company how it''s done, takes on a deadly missing persons case.

Sharon McCone''s flight instructor Matty confides that her boyfriend, John Seabrook, is missing and asks Sharon to find him. Shortly afterwards, Matty is killed in an "accidental" plane crash. More determined than ever, Sharon discovers that, a decade ago, Seabrook was placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program after testifying against a man who has been missing for the last 10 years. Following sinister leads, Sharon travels to a frozen wilderness—and comes face-to-face with Matty''s killer.

A DOUBLE NIGHTMARE

With her agency going great guns, Sharon McCone is known as one of the best detectives in the business...until her reputation is threatened by an impostor. The woman''s resemblance to McCone is uncanny. Her knowledge of McCone''s life is chilling. And with lover Hy Ripinsky away on business, McCone is alone as the double insidiously sabotages McCone''s career, invades her home, and leads her into a deadly game of cat and mouse through San Francisco''s underworld. Now, with professional detachment giving way to blinding rage, McCone is fighting for her life. But her very essence is also at stake...as a hunger for personal justice overrides her fiercely held ethics and lets loose a primeval urge for revenge.

New York Times bestselling author, Marcia Muller, brings you another thrilling mystery with her famous private investigator, Sharon McCone.

Sharon McCone, weary of San Francisco''s persistent rainy weather, jumps at the chance to investigate sabotage on the set of a documentary film being shot on the island of Kauai. Based on the writings of Hawaiian scholar Elson Wellbright, the film has incited major controversy among some of Wellbright''s family members who aren''t anxious to see the project reach completion. Vandalism quickly escalates into big-time violence, and McCone discovers a world of family secrets, drug dealing, political insurgency, and murder in this new crime novel by one of the world''s most beloved mystery writers.

In the captivating world of 19th century San Francisco, detectives Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon face their most baffling cases yet in The Plague of Thieves Affair.Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon, the dynamic duo behind Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, have cracked numerous mysteries in their five years of operation. However, one case continues to elude them: the enigmatic madman claiming to be Sherlock Holmes, who consistently appears with an uncanny ability to solve complex cases.When Roland W. Fairchild, a recent arrival from Chicago, asserts that the imposter is his first cousin, Charles P. Fairchild III, Sabina finds herself on a quest to locate Charles. If proven sane, he stands to inherit a substantial estate exceeding three million dollars. Sabina, though skeptical of Roland''s intentions, accepts the challenge.Meanwhile, John investigates the suspicious drowning of the Golden State brewery''s head brewmaster in a vat of his own creation. As a second murder unfolds and the culprit slips through his grasp, John''s reputation as a masterful detective hangs in the balance.Amidst the chaos, Sabina grapples with a moral dilemma. The false Holmes, while exasperating, has proven helpful and even kind. Convinced of his madness yet uncertain of the consequences once the truth is unveiled, she ponders: Must every mystery be solved?The Carpenter and Quincannon Mysteries:#1 The Bughouse Affair#2 The Spook Lights Affair#3 The Body Snatchers Affair#4 The Plague of Thieves Affair#5 The Dangerous Ladies Affair#6 The Bags of Tricks AffairAt the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Drug lords, missing millionaires, corrupt cops. It’s just another day for the Carpenter and Quincannon Detective Services.

Two missing bodies and two separate investigations take the detectives from the heights above San Francisco Bay to the depths of Chinatown''s opium dens.

John Quincannon must search a Chinatown opium den for his client''s husband, missing in the middle of a brewing tong war set to ignite over the stolen corpse of Bing Ah Kee. Meanwhile, his partner, Sabina Carpenter, searches for the corpse of a millionaire, stolen from a sealed family crypt and currently being held for ransom.

Is there a connection between the two body snatchings? Or is it simply greed? And why is the enigmatic Englishman who calls himself Sherlock Holmes watching so carefully from the shadows?

A debutante''s missing body, murder most foul, and weird spectral lights in the fog make for a thrilling gaslight-era tale of mystery and detection.

In 1895 San Francisco young debutantes don''t commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently did, leaping from a foggy parapet in a shimmer of ghostly light. The seemingly impossible disappearance of her body creates an even more serious problem for the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.

Sabina didn''t want to take the case, but her partner John Quincannon insisted it would serve as entr├®e to the city''s ultra rich and powerful. That means money, and Quincannon loves the almighty dollar—which is why he is hunting the bandit who robbed the Wells Fargo office of $35,000.

Working their separate cases—while Sabina holds John off with one light hand—the detectives give readers a tour of the city the way it was. From the infamous Barbary Coast to the expensive tenderloin gaming houses and brothels frequented by wealthy men, Quincannon follows a danger-laden trail to unmask the murderous perpetrators of the robbery. Meanwhile, Sabina works her wiles on friends and relatives of the vanished debutante until the pieces of her puzzle start falling into place. But it''s an oddly disguised gent appearing out of nowhere who provides the final clue to both cases—the shrewd "crackbrain" who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.

When new clients Jay and Camilla Givens come to Sharon McCone with Camilla''s stories of devil worshippers performing human sacrifices in San Francisco, the detective is skeptical, to say the least. However, when she discovers that Jay is involved with the treasure hunting group the Night Searchers, she starts looking into what exactly he and the other participants are up to after dark. As she digs deeper into the Searchers, Sharon joins their ranks in order to find out more—while someone is searching for her.

Can the true identity of the Sherlock Holmes imposter be revealed at last?

Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon are no stranger to mysteries. In the five years since they opened Carpenter and Quinncannon, Professional Detective Services, they have solved dozens, but one has eluded even them: Sherlock Holmes or, rather, the madman claiming his identity, who keeps showing up with a frustrating—though admittedly useful—knack for solving difficult cases.

Roland W. Fairchild, recently arrived from Chicago, claims the man is his first cousin, Charles P. Fairchild III. Now, with his father dead, Charles stands to inherit an estate of over $3 million, if Sabina can find him and if he can be proved sane. Sabina is uncertain of Roland’s motives but agrees to take the case.

John, meanwhile, has been hired by the owner of the Golden State brewery to investigate the “accidental” death of the head brewmaster, who drowned in a vat of his own beer. When a second murder occurs and the murderer escapes from under his nose, John sets out to find the trail of the criminals—and to ensure he keeps his reputation for catching them.

But while John is certain he can catch his quarry, Sabina is less certain whether she even wants to catch hers. Holmes has been frustrating but useful and even kind. She is quite certain he is mad but quite uncertain what will happen when he is confronted with the truth. Does every mystery need to be solved?

For the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, stopping extortionists is not only grand, but excitingly lucrative.

When a pleasant afternoon’s bicycling through Golden Gate Park with a friend ends with the revelation of threatening letters, followed by a gunshot in a mansion garden, Sabina Carpenter knows this is a case that demands her immediate and undivided attention.

The questions her partner John Quincannon has to unravel are not difficult: Wrixton, a wealthy banker, has met his extortionist’s first demand, but the order to pay another $5,000 is too much to face. The banker’s real problem is something he doesn’t want to reveal. That was fine with the detective, and when he was informed that some private letters were involved and Wrixton absolutely needed them back, there was nothing more Quincannon needed in the way of background. As with so many of San Francisco’s elite, the bedroom doors never seemed to stay shut.

That was the easy part; far more difficult was the matter of the dead courier, murdered most foully in a locked room within a locked room, creating a trail that will take John Quincannon through most of San Francisco’s less savory places and end with a riverboat trip that is anything but a relaxing cruise.

The Dangerous Ladies Affair is the next thrilling installment in this charming historical mystery series from MWA Grand Masters Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.