The Dangerous Hour (Sharon McCone, 22)

Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER PAGE TURNER FROM MARCIA MULLER SUPERBLY READ
Review:


Ace author Marcia Muller keeps churning out page turners and readers/listeners happily devour them. Seems impossible but this is the 23rd tale starring likable, lovely, tough private investigator Sharon McCone. Fans have had opportunities to watch Sharon extricate herself from a number of seemingly fatal situations and rise to the top of the heap with a detective agency of her own.

Yes, it seems life is good in all departments business is booming and man of her heart Hy Ripinsky wants to tie the knot. But, you know how it is. Just when it's all smooth sailing - kerplunk.

One of Sharon's trusted employees, Julia Rafael, stands accused of credit card theft. Regrettably, Julia's past doesn't offer much to recommend her but Sharon had taken a chance. She wishes she hadn't when the merchandise charged to the stolen credit card is found in her agency's mailroom.

It becomes obvious that someone's out to ruin Sharon's business. Worse still, the same someone wants to ruin her personally. The credit card in question belongs to a mayoral aspirant. How does that tie in to someone breaking into Sharon's car and home? Therein lies the tale.

Voice actress Susan Erickson gives spunky, resonant voice to Sharon as she unravels the latest mystery. Give a listen - Marcia Muller does not disappoint.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: The Dangerous Hour
Review: "The Dangerous Hour" is the 23rd Sharon McCone novel by Marcia Muller. One of Sharon's newest operatives, Julia Rafael, is arrested and charged with grand theft. The police say she used a credit card belonging to Alex Aguilar, a man who has great political aspirations. Aguilar then goes to the Department of Consumer Affairs and lodges a complain against McCone's agency. Aguilar had been a previous client of the firm. The DCA licenses her agency. The BSIS - Bureau of Investigative Services - would perform an audit and could take Sharon's license away. An attempt is made on Julia's life and someone shoots at Mick, Sharon's nephew and operative. Sharon wonders who hates her enough to want to ruin her. She realizes that someone wants to do great harm to her. This novel has the usual cast of characters that are in the McCone novels. I think Marcia Muller still has the best female investigator in mystery fiction. This novel is full of suspense and is highly recommended.

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Summary: McCone Faces Down Two Personal Crises
Review: As The Dangerous Hour opens, Sharon McCone is filled with joy over the economic and professional success of McCone Investigations . . . and overflowing with anxiety about Hy Ripinsky's marriage proposal. Almost instantly the joy of success is replaced with fear of loss as one of her new employees is hauled away for credit card fraud against a recent client. Under California licensing rules, McCone can lose her business due to an employee's malfeasance. While expensive lawyers right to gain her time and breathing space, McCone leads her entire firm and related friends, neighbors and snitches to find out what's really going on. At the same time, she has to keep the wolf from the door so client work continues as well. In the process, all of the usual characters make at least cameo appearances.

One of the challenges that Marcia Muller faces in each Sharon McCone mystery is how to employ all of the interesting and memorable characters that she has developed through more than 20 novels. That challenge usually determines how well the book turns out. In The Dangerous Hour, Ms. Muller gives into the temptation to deploy all of her characters . . . and to add a few more interesting ones. Unless she wants to write War and Peace, this means that some characters appear by name but don't really appear as characters. That makes the story seem bloated and dull in places. But considering how many characters are crammed into this book, it's a remarkable achievement to have this only be a minor problem that caused me to nick my rating by one star.

McCone is really a loner who likes people . . . but doesn't feel comfortable getting close to them. I credit Ms. Muller with great skill in being able to populate the McCone books with so many characters who could plausibly want to be connected to McCone. Ms. Muller has a great instinct for capturing human motivations, weaknesses and strengths . . . and connecting them to their natural environments and human connections. In The Dangerous Hour she does this very deftly in a number of places so that the new characters seem more vivid than the old ones do.

As the McCone universe expands, it becomes more realistic and the stories resonate better. I look forward to even more complicated plots with even more characters in the future. Ms. Muller's skill is developing nicely. I hope she remembers to leave out characters that she cannot involve sufficiently to make them relevant to the story and our interest in those characters.

On the other hand, Ms. Muller wisely chose to have McCone deal with the investigation in as much of a one-woman style as possible . . . bringing back the tension and immediacy of the earliest books in the series. Very nice!




Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: For a Sharon McCone mystery it's not as strong as others, but then again I did enjoy the story. I find it amazing that there are so many series that I do read and as in this case it seems after so long the author has gotten less story for more price. This book was a bit short for my taste, but as I said the search for the threat is real and I enjoyed the search for who the bad guys are after and who they actually are. I'd say more but I hate reading the reviews and knowing too much about the story.
Just go into the story with open eyes it's well written and vibrantly descriptive just what I was looking for in a mystery!

Rating:
Summary: phoned it in....
Review: I am normally a big fan of Marcia Muller & the Sharon McCone mysteries. On this one however, it seemed like Muller phoned it in...

The plot wasn't engaging & there was virtually no suspense. The plot actually seemed very contrived, conveniently tying in the culprits with *POSSIBLE SPOILER* people from Sharon's past.

Basically this book just seemed a pitstop in the normally compelling Sharon McCone mystery series.....



Rating:
Summary: Loved this one - Great Suspense and who done it
Review: In this latest installment by Muller Private Investigator Sharon (Share, Shar) McCone is wrestling with a lot of things in her personal life. Her cat is sick, her long time boyfriend wants to marry her, and in the opening of the story her youngest investigator (Julia) is accused of stealing the credit card of a former client.

Supervisor Alex Aguilar who appears to be the San Francisco's Latino communities golden boy and best chance for mayor is the one doing the accusing. In fact he has also contacted the state licensing board, who could take Sharon's license away based on the actions of her employee.

Sharon and the rest of the staff don't believe that Julia, despite her checkered past, is guilty of what she is being accused of and they set out to investigate the situation. As Sharon and her crew investigate the "golden boy" they determine his is not so golden, his neighbors all hate him, he is demanding and dictatorial in his business dealings, and he appears to have a past that links him with some of the known drug pushers in the areas. As the investigation progresses Sharon determines that Alex's business partner Scott's hiking accident appears to be murder. As the story progresses, things lead the group to believe that Julia might not be the intended target but Sharon herself. The story continues until the "bag guy" is caught and all the pieces fit together. Even the solution to Sharon's sick cat and her waffling decision whether to marry Hy or not.

I missed a few books in this series but have found each one stand on its own. Loved this one. Especially the twists and turns.


Rating:
Summary: McCone still going strong!
Review: Muller's latest Sharon McCone mystery is up to her usual standard. McCone's latest employee, Julia Rafael, is charged with credit-card fraud, and McCone doesn't believe it, nor does anyone else who knows her. However, the person accusing her, Alex Aguilar, is a respected member of the Board of Supervisors and founder of a job-training center, and things do not look good.

But McCone's investigation reveals that Aguilar may have plenty to hide, and that, in fact, a frame-up of Julia may have been set in place specifically to ruin McCone.

One thing I like very much about this series is that McCone and other continuing characters do not remain static. In this book, McCone continues to deal with her reaction to her brother's suicide, to her discovery of her own adoption and reunion with her birth family, and with changes in her relationship with her lover, Hy Ripinsky.

A fast-paced and well-written book.

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Summary: Another excellent Sharon McCone story
Review: The latest installment in the Sharon McCone series, The Dangerous Hours will not disappoint. Sharon's life is finally coming together-her business is thriving, her relationship with Hy, her long-term boyfriend is moving towards serious commitment, and even her extended family seems to be settling down.

Suddenly, Sharon's business is at risk from the illegal actions of a new, unlicensed employee. Sharon and her entire team take on the challenge of finding out what is going on to save the agency and their jobs. At the same time, Sharon finds help from old friends such as attorney Glenn Solomon and Hy, while making new friends in the form of two new hires to the agency.

The answer to Sharon's current problems lies in an old case, and once she has a suspect in mind, Sharon goes after him with the single mindedness familiar from previous installments. There is an interesting segue in this book where Sharon faces the impact of two of her cases on the people involved-this one, where the guilty party is truly criminal, and another case that affected someone who had simply fallen on bad times. Sharon takes appropriate action in both instances, and I found this juxtaposition a highlight of the story.

I have been a fan of Marcia Muller for a number of years, and really enjoyed The Dangerous Hour. Muller has been able to grow and mature McCone in a manner that is consistent with Sharon's personality and history. Although this is not quite the quick tempered, adventure seeking McCone of the past, it is also wonderful that Muller has not allowed McCone to become stale or obvious. As always, the book is tightly written and flows smoothly through out, and hopefully we will not need to wait too long for a new book from Muller.


Rating:
Summary: Good Action, Not On Characters
Review: This book is very good as far as the action goes. McCones agency is under attack from someone trying to discredit them. There are personal attacks on several employees, and against her home. Add to that a sick cat, and a marriage proposal, and you have a very full book. There are a couple of new charcaters introduced, who may become parts of future books. It was very easy to pick out one of the "bad" guys. My only complaint with this book is that it doesn't get into the characters heads very much, as we've learned to expect from this author. But, the action is enough to keep it at four stars, but not by much. I will look forward to the next book in the series, as it seems like this was a long time coming.