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4.0étoiles sur 5
Silent Witness, Janv. 1 2010
"When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long." -- Psalm 32:3
Imagine that you are the victim of a terrible crime and awake from the trauma to find that no one knows you are conscious. How could you track down the people who did it to you?
That's the fascinating premise of this latest entry in the distinguished Sharon McCone mystery series. It opens the doors for using the little gray cells, as M. Hercule Poirot would say. It also opens the doors for Sharon McCone's family and friends to take center stage in doing the sleuthing to find out who broke into the agency and attacked Sharon.
Like most detective agencies, there is more than the average number of sleazy characters among the clientele. Can running down the agency's cases turn up the criminal? Everyone surely hopes so.
At the same time, each person finds himself or herself tested by the desire for making things right or for seeking revenge. The result is a fascinating series of character studies that will only be appealing to those who are long-time fans of the series and know the characters well. Otherwise, the delicate developments may not mean much to you as a reader.
Although I liked the story very much, it felt a little contrived and a little too neat in the plot development for me. There needed to be more blind alleys and frustrations than the plot offered to make the reader feel as frustrated as the fictional McCone should have felt.
I admire, as always, Marcia Muller's astonishing ability to involve lots of continuing characters into a single story in meaningful ways. It's no wonder that her colleagues view her as a Grand Master. I heartily concur.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
Locked in Gets us Hooked in, Nov. 18 2009
Art Matters: The Art of Knowledge/The Knowledge of Art
Natural Law, Science, and the Social Construction of Reality
I agree with the previous reviewer that this is probably the best book in the series. But before i get into the review I want to comment on the cover claiming McCone is a hard-boiled detective. Not so. Kinsey Milhone may be but Sharon works with her team, shares information, gives credit, we always know what she is feeling.
What makes this book so great is how both Sharon and her crew are portrayed. Sharon spends most of the book in a hospital bed unable to speak, but she is ware of her surroundings, thus she is 'locked in.'
All the team try to figure out what, why, and who did it. So they begin their individual investigations, all checking in with Sharon and she gives them the answers they need by blinking.
Hy feels useless and contemplates doing something stupid. And Sharon's whole family also shows up. her father Elwood becomes really important to Hy as they await the results of Sharon's surgery.
The cases that everyone is looking into are quite complex and lead the investigators into many directions. It is Muller's great talent that keeps us involved. The method of writing, where, on each day of Sharon's hospitalization, we are given short chapters for each operative, so we follow the investigations as they are all happening at the same time.
I don't want to give anything away so I will stop now. But regular readers of the series will probably guess the outcome.
In short a really great read. it is not only a good mystery, but a good psychological novel as well.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
THE BEST OF THE McCONE SERIES, Oct. 22 2009
There is no doubt that Marcia Muller is one of the top mystery writers working today. She has the Grand Masters Award from the Mystery Writers of America plus a host of other honors to prove it. However, her army of readers don't need these affirmations to know that a Muller book is going to intrigue and entertain them.
Best known for stories featuring private investigator Sharon McCone this author suprises us with her latest, Locked In. McCone has been a top favorite since her debut in 1977; we think we know her pretty well. Nonetheless, this title's opener is a real shocker: on a misty July night in San Francisco McCone's vintage MG runs out of gas. Fortunately, she's not too far from her office on the Pier and she takes off for it on foot. Once at the security grille to the Pier she called for the security guard, Lewis, a problem alcoholic. He's not to be found. She uses her security code to open the door to the Pier's entrance, climbs the stairs to the office's catwalk, and finds the door unlocked. It's dark inside, there's a sudden motion -she is shot.
The bullet has entered her brain leaving her in a comatose state known as locked-in syndrome. She cannot speak or move, totally paralyzed and can communicate only by blinking her eyes in response to a question. So, for once McCone is not at the leader of a crime investigation but the center of it as her team rallies, scurrying for clues, determined to find out who shot McCone and why.
What this scenario does in the talented hands of author Muller is allow the reader not only to be fascinated as the reasons for the shooting are revealed but also to become better acquainted with the major players in this series as each one turns over every rock searching for the assailant.
Of course, McCone series readers are familiar with Hy Ripinsky, partner and husband to McCone yet here he is revealed in utter anguish as he remembers his past and articulates his hopes for a future with McCone. There is Latina Julia Rafael who'd "been hooking and dealing on the tough streets of the Mission district when she was a teenager,"but McCone saw so much more and placed confidence in her, helping Julia to turn her life around.
There's Mick Savage, McCone's nephew who had pulled some pretty dumb stunts, but his aunt "had been solid as a rock, taking him seriously, treating him like a man when he was only a kid." He loved her and he owed her.
These and others are united by their determination to catch whoever had almost killed McCone. Revelations of what they are finding are interspersed with thoughts running through McCone's mind as she is by turns discouraged, enraged, and bent on somehow escaping the prison that her body has become.
For this reader Locked In is the best of the McCone series, and that's saying quite a bit!
- Gail Cooke
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de Marcia Muller
de Deborah Crombie
de Ruth Rendell
de Sue Grafton
de J A Jance
