MARCIA MULLER – Vanishing Point. Nominated for Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year, 2007.

Mysterious Press, hardcover, July 2006. Paperback reprint: July 2007.

   Book description:

Vanishing Point

In the latest installment in this critically acclaimed series, McCone is hired to investigate one of San Luis Obispo County’s most puzzling cold cases. A generation ago, Laurel Greenwood, a housewife and artist, inexplicably vanished, leaving her young daughter alone. Now, new evidence suggests that the missing woman may have led a strange double life. But before McCone can penetrate the tangled mystery, she must first solve a second disappearance: that of her client, the now grown daughter of Laurel Greenwood. The case, which forces Sharon to explore the darker sides of two marriages, comes uncomfortably close on the heels of her own marriage to Hy Ripinsky, and she begins to doubt the wisdom of her impulsive trip to the Reno wedding chapel.

   About the Author:

Marcia Muller, a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, is the critically-acclaimed author of more than twenty novels. She has been awarded the Private Eye Writers of America Life Achievement Award, her books have been nominated for Best Crime Novel at the Edgar Awards, and she has won the Anthony Boucher Award. She lives in California with Bill Pronzini.

   Review Excerpts:

Publishers Weekly: “MWA Grand Master Muller’s richly layered 24th mystery to feature San Francisco PI Sharon McCone (after 2004’s The Dangerous Hour) reminds us how much McCone has grown since she started as the lone investigator at a poverty law center in her first outing, Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977). […] The story takes readers on a charming tour through the fishing villages of the California coast, while the tight, crisp plot surges relentlessly forward. The tension between light and dark, between surface happiness and hidden truths, raises this novel well above the common run of whodunits.”

   Booklist: “As usual in Muller’s mysteries, dialogue-driven narrative makes the story a quick read, and this time there’s some underlying commentary about marriage, which dovetails nicely with Sharon’s continuing anxieties about her future with new husband Hy.”

   Previous Sharon McCone novels: (hardcover editions only)

Edwin of the Iron Shoes. McKay, 1977.

Ask the Cards a Question. St. Martin’s, 1982.

The Cheshire Cat’s Eye. St. Martin’s, 1983.

Games to Keep the Dark Away. St. Martin’s, 1984.

Leave a Message for Willie. St. Martin’s, 1984.

Double. St. Martin’s, 1984. [with Bill Pronzini’s Nameless PI]

There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of. St. Martin’s, 1985.

Eye of the Storm. Mysterious Press, 1988.

There’s Something in a Sunday. Mysterious Press, 1989.

The Shape of Dread. Mysterious Press, 1989.

Trophies and Dead Things. Mysterious Press, 1990.

Where Echoes Live. Mysterious Press, 1991.

Pennies on a Dead Woman’s Eyes. Mysterious Press, 1992.

Wolf in the Shadows. Mysterious Press, 1993.

Till the Butchers Cut Him Down. Mysterious Press, 1994.

The McCone Files. Crippen & Landru, 1995 [short story collection]

A Wild and Lonely Place. Mysterious Press, 1995.

The Broken Promise Land. Mysterious Press, 1996.

Both Ends of the Night. Mysterious Press, 1997.

While Other People Sleep. Mysterious Press, 1998.

A Walk Through Fire. Mysterious Press, 1999.

Listen to the Silence. Mysterious Press, 2000.

McCone and Friends. Crippen & Landru, 2000. [short story collection]

Dead Midnight. Mysterious Press, 2002.

The Dangerous Hour. Mysterious Press, 2004.

   [Newly Published:]

The Ever-Running Man. Grand Central Publishing, July 2007.