Fri 18 Jul 2025
Archived Review: MARCIA MULLER – The Legend of the Slain Soldiers.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
MARCIA MULLER – The Legend of the Slain Soldiers. Elena Oliverez #2. Walker & Company, hardcover, 1985. Signet, paperback, November, 1987. Mysterious Press, paperback, 1996.
Elena Oliverez is director of Santa Barbara’s Museum of Mexican Arts, but when a friend of her mother is found dead, murder is suspected, and she becomes an amateur detective again. (Her first mystery was The Tree of Death, which I haven’t read, and I should.)
The man was a historian, writing a book about the area’s labor struggles in the 1930s. Elena, as a Chicana, in a primarily white world, is also trying to come to grips with her cultural heritage, making the background an essential part of the story, nicely told.
NOTE: There were only the two books in the series.
July 18th, 2025 at 11:40 pm
While the Sharon McCone books were my favorites, I was fond of the Oliverez series as well. Muller continues the McCone books, I think possibly recently wrapping the series up.
Unlike some of the other good female eye series that started in the same era the McCone books never got bloated or lost their roots in the hardboiled genre or as a suspense novelist.
July 19th, 2025 at 5:06 pm
I agree. I kind of wish, though, that Muller had written more books in this series as well, but how many murder cases can the director of an art museum get involved with, even in California? Realistically, I mean.
July 23rd, 2025 at 3:06 am
I, too, read the first, liked it, but never picked up the second…which is perhaps another reason there were no more…the publisher wasn’t thrilled with sales. Shame on me. A novel a year pushing coincidence does tend to get along better than most tv series…