Product Description

When Sharon McCone receives the distressing news of her fathers death, she immediately goes to San Diego to help her brother scatter their fathers ashes and settle his affairs. But while going through his legal papers, Sharon uncovers a 1959 petition for the adoption of a Baby Girl Smithan infant who, from the day of adoption, has been known as Sharon Elizabeth McCone. Now, determined to find her biological parents, Sharon finds herself deep in Idahos Flathead Reservation. Met with resentment, she discovers a few locals who will stop at nothing to make sure certain secrets are kept hidden. Marcia Muller is the recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. Her previous eight novels for Mysterious Press were Main Selections of The Mystery Guild. Her books have received critical praise and have been translated into eight languages. This novel is slick and fast with a well plotted mystery. In short, vintage Muller. ~ The Globe and Mail on A Walk Through The Fire The novel hits an increasingly, intriguing, stride that keeps its surprises and uncertainties going to the end. ~ The Toronto Sun on A Walk Through The Fire

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #93467 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
Sharon McCone (A Walk Through the Fire, McCone & Friends, Both Ends of the Night, etc.) is used to solving problems. She's been doing it for over 20 years in Marcia Muller's pioneering and acclaimed series about the San Francisco PI. And thanks to her extended and occasionally dysfunctional family, she's no stranger to the consequences of revealing the occasional skeleton in the closet. But her latest case is both personal and deeply devastating. After her father dies, Sharon discovers documents that have been hidden for her entire life and they launch her on a voyage of self-discovery. Intent on exploring her own past, Sharon travels from a Shoshone Indian reservation in Montana to a ghost town in northern California, and she becomes involved in a larger story of deceit--and murder.

Writing a series means treading delicately on a high wire between repetition and revelation. Having once created a character who will voyage through two or 10 or 10,000 books, an author must decide what facets of the character's life will reappear as touchstones in each book, what items may be left by the wayside, how the past will inform the present, and how the present will indicate the future. With each new novel, the author reaches out to readers who may be comfortably familiar with the series and to readers who may be discovering it for the first time. There is no shortage of mystery writers whose series are immensely rewarding (think Sara Paretsky or Sue Grafton), but it's a difficult balancing act nonetheless. With Listen to the Silence, Marcia Muller seems to stumble slightly, just enough to leave readers wondering whether a safety net is in order. It's as if the burden of the past becomes too heavy for either character or author to support. Sharon seems a trifle flat, and Muller's integration of family and familiarity seems forced and abrupt. A first-time reader would do well to seek out earlier volumes in the series, but confirmed Muller fans will still relish the intensity with which the novel plunges into deeply unsettling territory. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly
Boucher Award-winner Muller is back on form (after last year's somewhat disappointing and atypical A Walk Through Fire) in this latest entry in her deservedly popular series featuring PI Sharon McCone. In a personal twist, McCone has to crack one of her toughest cases yet: the mystery of her own life. Her father's death brings McCone not only sadness but the shocking revelation that she was adopted. The search for her birth parents takes her to a Shoshone reservation in Idaho, where an old man named Elwood Farmer offers cryptic advice. Armed with an old photograph in a buffalo-bone frame, McCone tracks down Saskia Blackhawk, the woman she believes to be her birth mother, only to see her put into a coma by a hit-and-run. Saskia, a lawyer, had been battling with Austin DeCarlo, a developer, over Spirit Lake, an area Modoc Indians consider sacred, but DeCarlo considers ripe for a resort. DeCarlo may be McCone's biological father, which would mean that her father may be trying to kill her mother. Meanwhile, professional troublemaker Jimmy D. Bearpaw seems happy to play on either side of the fence as long as he can make life hard for everybody. McCone must sort out the current legal tangles and ask some tough questions if she's to discover what really happened 40 years agoAand facing some important family truths may be harder than confronting a killer. Although Muller gives a long-ago murder curiously short shrift, she delivers an emotion-packed tale that adds new depth to her heroine. Mystery Guild main selection. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Sharon McCone is celebrating her colleague's wedding when the phone call comes informing her of her father's death. His final instructions are explicit: Sharon is to be the only one to go through his personal papers. In them, she finds a document confirming her adoption. This comes as a total and devastating surprise to her. Determined to find the identity of her birth parents, she travels from a Shoshone Indian reservation in Montana to a ghost town in California. She discovers deceptions, family intrigues, mysterious land deals, a murder, and has her life threatened more than once. Teens will be fascinated by Sharon's search for her roots, and the ending has a twist that will make them eager to read the earlier McCone mysteries as well.-Katherine Fitch, Rachel Carson Middle School, Fairfax, VA

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A deeply personal look at Sharon McCone
Readers who have been following Sharon McCone for years, as I have, will no doubt love this chance to find out more about her personal background and history. I stayed up 'til 2 AM reading "Listen to the Silence." Not only is it a splendid mystery, but it's so beautifully written -- Muller describes the landscapes of Montana, Idaho and Northern California so well that I truly felt I'd visited those places! McCone fans won't be disappointed, although the book does end with a cliffhanger that will make us VERY impatient for the next installment...

A Thought-Provoking Novel About What a Family Is
This distinguished series has been a favorite of mine for many years, but I found this novel to be the most rewarding to me. In other novels, Sharon McCone's character, wit, and action are stronger . . . but the underlying issues are much less fundamental. Here, she has to look squarely at the question of who she is in the broadest sense. To pull that off after so many novels is quite a feat. I heartily commend and thank Marcia Muller for writing this book.

I can't tell you very much about the plot without giving away things that will spoil the story for you. So I apologize for not giving you as much detail as I usually do.

Let me talk instead about how the plot is organized. Sharon McCone is off on a search for identity where one clue connects to another. So there is the usual mystery-unraveling aspect to the plot. The complications are above average in their extent, and provide satisfying revelations right up to the end.

As you may know from other Sharon McCone novels, Marcia Muller likes to work with mental dialogue as well as spoken dialogue. In this case, the internal dialogue is about listening for what people don't say, when they hesitate, or change the subject. From this interesting technique, you will probably become a better listener. Like most of us, Sharon McCone lets most of this information pass her by the first time she hears it. But upon further reflection, she sees missing elements. And then profitably focuses her attention on those. By this method, most of the plot is unraveled.

But the development of what a family is makes this a remarkable mystery. In this one novel, Marcia Muller looks at intergenerational relations, the implications of adoption and remarriage, male-female relations with and without marriage, and clan relations as well. Few novels have this scope, and I hope you will look for this element and think about it as you read this rewarding novel.

For Sharon McCone fans, this book is going to be very exciting for another reason: The elements in this book create vast potential for developing new and expanded themes in future books in the series.

If you have not read any of the books in the series, however, I suggest that you not start with this one. A lot of its appeal comes in the surprises that you will experience as the plot unfolds. I envy you the chance to start in the beginning and read all of these books in order!

Overcome your complacency about thinking you know what is about to happen in your own life. Use this book to identify a single assumption you are making about your life which, if changed, would refocus everything you do. Then consider whether your assumption is really a good one. Who knows what you will discover?

Enjoy!

Buy this book! A great summer read...
Marcia Muller's writing has been getting better and better, book by book. This, her latest, however, is a giant leap forward. I couldn't put it down! The dynamic plot moves along quickly, almost seamlessly, through some new and intriguing places. Her fearless Private Investigator, Sharon McCone, is more confident and believable than ever as she leads us to a whole new cast of (very attractive) characters. Fans of McCone will love this book. If you've not read Muller before, start with this one!