Marcia Muller

Three years ago, Caro Warrick was acquitted for the murder of her best friend Amelia Bettencourt but the lingering doubts of everyone around Caro is affecting her life. Sharon McCone is confident that she can succeed where other detectives have failed (though at times it's hard to shake her own misgivings about what happened) but when Caro is brutally beaten right at Sharon's doorstep, the investigation takes on a whole new course. How many more people remain at risk until Amelia's murderer is finally caught?

The world's first two-author, husband-and-wife short story collection. Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini are two of the world's most popular and respected mystery authors. Their new collection demonstrates why this team has so many fans. Here you'll find Muller's famous Sharon McCone searching for the dark truth in "Somewhere in the City." Pronzini's long-heralded private eye Nameless is tracking down a clever killer in "Home is th+235:235e Place Where." McCone and Nameless team up in the wry "Cache and Carry." Fourteen great stories in all. Praise for Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini"Muller remains the best."-San Diego Tribune"(Pronzini's) 'Nameless' has become a national treasure."-Booklist

"Sweet Cactus Wine," in which a benign saguaro cactus commits mayhem, was Muller's first Western story. Each tale, including "The Cyaniders" written especially for this collection, is a miniature masterpiece of storytelling, realistic characters, and vivid settings. Even Sharon McCone makes her appearance in two of the stories, "The Lost Coast" and "Knives at Midnight," the latter collected here for the first time. Also included is her only collaboration with her husband, Bill Pronzini, on a Western story. "Caves of Ice" was inspired by a visit to an ice cave in Montana. "Forbidden Things" is an imperishable story of a woman who finds out who she really is when she returns to Camel Rock. There are elements of horror and imagination not only in "Time of the Wolves" but also in "The Indian Witch." Time of the Wolves is an extraordinary collection of Western stories by a truly outstanding author, stories that can and will be read and reread with sustaining enjoyment.

A collection of short stories ranging from the straight-forward detective to the off-beat mystery. Includes Sharon McCone and Elena Oliverez stories as well as an original introduction by the author. Marcia Muller, author of the Elena Oliverez mysteries, is the creator of sleuth Sharon McCone, widely considered to be the first of the new breed of female private eyes.

Joanna Stark thought she had finally left her troubled past behind: After the death of her husband, she quit the San Francisco art security firm where she was a partner and retreated to the small California wine country town of Sonoma. But unexpectedly, in one rainy week before Thanksgiving, her carefully constructed world collapses. A Frans Hals painting, The Cavalier in White, is stolen from the M. H. de Young Museum, and the strange circumstances surrounding its disappearance prompt her former business partner to ask her to return to the city and investigate the theft. Joanna knows she must go back-as much for her own protection as for the sake of the museum. Her investigation takes her from the hushed corridors of the de Young to a seedy waterfront tavern; from a Seacliff mansion to a vandalized shack on the shores of the Bay; to galleries, museum openings-and the scene of a murder. By the time she confronts the killer, the careful order of her life is nearly destroyed and she finds that the past is not only inescapable, but also more complex and frightening than she had previously imagined.

A DOUBLE NIGHTMAR94EWith 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.