Till the Butchers Cut Him Down

Read Till the Butchers Cut Him Down Storyline:

P.I. Sharon McCone has struck out on her own and needs all the clients she can get - even a shady character from her Berkeley days. From the moment T.J. "Suitcase" Gordon whisks her off in his private helicopter, complaining of death threats, her life will never be the same....From Publishers WeeklyWhile Muller continues to reveal new facets of character in her San Francisco PI, Sharon McCone, this latest case, the 15th, is considerably tamer than the Mexican border skirmishing featured in her 1993 Edgar-nominated A Wolf in the Shadows. McCone has just left the All-Souls Legal Cooperative and opened her own business when an eccentric friend from her UC-Berkeley days, who now specializes in rescuing failing corporations, asks her to find out who is sabotaging his efforts to save a San Francisco shipping firm and threatening his life. T. J. "Suitcase" Gordon reports some odd accidents, but McCone suspects that the obsessively private man may also be paranoid. She meets Gordon's wife Anna, who could have been her sister ("we looked that much alike"), but then an explosion destroys the Gordons' secluded northern California home, leaving Anna dead. With Gordon in reclusive mourning, Sharon investigates two of his past projects, one in a revived Nevada ghost town and another at a moribund steel center in Pennsylvania. Unearthing possible revenge motives and another murder victim, she draws the killer's malevolent attention to herself back in San Francisco. A final, abrupt climax caps this adventure, whose cast--outside of always amiable Sharon, her eager, troublesome nephew/assistant and her barely glimpsed lover, Hy Ripinsky--is a generally unengaging lot. Mystery Guild selection. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalProblems of the heart, ambivalent feelings of independence, and acute observations of reality lend investigator Sharon McCone a solid and enduring foundation of credibility. The San Francisco series heroine opens McCone Investigations with the bizarre case of a long-ago friend and onetime lover who believes someone wants him dead. McCone must first separate truth from fantasy, since the highly paid but lonely corporate turnaround man may just be paranoid, imagining several attempts on his life. Muller (Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes, LJ 6/1/92) maintains her exemplary high standards: great female private eye, smooth flowing narrative, and riveting plot.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.