Vanishing Point (A Sharon McCone Mystery, 23)

All these years later, there's still no one who can hold a candle to Marcia Muller when it comes to writing mystery/suspense novels. Sharon is still the best P.I. out there, and the supporting cast is the best the genre has to offer. I was dreading this book a little bit due to how the last one ended (I don't much care for the character Hy), so I was glad to see that it focused on the mystery and that Sharon hadn't changed due to marriage. Now if we could just see the character Rae fade off into the sunset, I'd be very happy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I especially like the Sharon McCone character. I would recommend it to my friends.

Marcia Muller began writing the Sharon McCone Mystery Series in 1977. Twenty-four books later, her heroine is still interesting and her plots and characters are more multi-layered and complex than ever. In this installment, McCone is called upon by a daughter to find her mother who disappeared over 20 years ago. Sharon's investigation is sandwiched between her marriage to Hy Ripinsky and a reception put on by her ever-dysfunctional family. Muller weaves these subplots nicely together with the mystery of the woman's disappearance in a book which should be pleasing to her many long-time fans.

Private Investigator Sharon McCone has just returned from Carson City, Nevada, after surprising herself and her large circle of family and friends by eloping with longtime significant other, the dashing Hy Ripinski. They attend a hastily arranged reception and the champagne is still bubbly when Hy is called away on business and Sharon is cornered by her friend Rae to dig up a cold case for a friend. Sharon's PI business is booming. She has come a long way from the Lost Souls agency in the 1970s. She has expanded her investigative staff to handle all the new business piling up, even during her brief escape to Nevada. Digging into the 22-year-old sudden disappearance of Laurel Greenwood --- wife and mother of two small daughters --- is not at the top of her priority list. She agrees to interview the now-grown daughter and is given a large retainer and reluctantly consents to talk to authorities and other family members. It is quickly apparent that things don't quite add up. As the case unfolds, the daughter vanishes as suddenly and mysteriously as her mother. Members of Sharon's extended family find themselves entwined in the mystery that begins to point away from suicide or murder to something more sinister. Meanwhile, Sharon and Hy's unconventional marriage, off to anything but an idyllic start, seems downright stable and normal compared to the fractured relationships among the family members of the missing woman. The complex emotional relationships that surface are skillfully woven into the plot, which twists and turns like the scenic wine country roads along the Northern California coastal region Sharon travels as she embarks on the search. Laurel Greenwood may be one of Marcia Muller's more complicated and interesting characters, and she treats the complexities of Laurel's troubled past with page-turning intrigue. McCone fans can look forward to Muller's increasingly polished style of storytelling, and they will be treated to a travelogue of some of America's most beautiful country. --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

San Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone shocks family, friends, colleagues, herself and her significant other corporate security specialist Hy Ripinsky when she agrees to marry him. The wedding is planned to be held in Nevada where before saying yes no one would have taken bets on McCone agreeing to marry even if she loves Hy though they respect one another as professionals. Meanwhile Jennifer Aldin hires McCone to investigate the disappearance of her mother Laurel Greenwood, who abruptly vanished over two decades ago. Apparently Laurel, a San Luis Obispo County landscape artist never came home from painting a California coastal scene; she left behind two preadolescent daughters and a spouse. McCone explains that the case is beyond cold to absolutely frigid, but agrees to make inquiries as Jennifer explains how it would have felt to be the older at ten years old and your beloved mom never came home. As McCone digs up the past, she uncovers a different portrait of Laurel, a much darker person than that described by Jennifer. When someone tries to frighten her off the case. McCone obstinately digs deeper even as she reconsiders Reno with Hy. The twenty-fourth McCone mystery is the sleuth at her best as her investigation into the missing mom makes her reconsider marriage. The story line is as always owned by McCone whose personal commitment issues enhance a terrific cold case investigation. Fans of the series will want to read this one sitting novel like yesterday and newcomers will scramble for the backlist. Perhaps the only negative point is that those of us who have followed McCone from the days of her one person office will feel middle age drifting away as thirty years have passed; thank goodness that Marcia Muller has made the years fun. Harriet Klausner