RogerBW's Blog

A Wild and Lonely Place, Marcia Muller 07 October 2019

1995 mystery, fifteenth in Muller's series about Sharon McCone, private investigator in San Francisco. McCone's trying to get the reward for tracking down the "Diplo-Bomber" who's been sending explosive packages to various embassies and consulates… but it quickly becomes personal.

This quickly becomes two cases: the bomber takes a back seat once McCone deals with the Azadi Consulate ("one of those oil-rich emirates" that's unusually progressive, with a female consul-general, but now with a fundamentalist leader at home), since there's personal drama that seems somewhat forced, and soon McCone is chasing off to a small Leeward Island to recover the kidnapped granddaughter of said consul-general… from the child's father. Once that's done and the girl's lodged somewhere safe, it's back to the bombing case, involving prickly negotiations with a task force, and once again a personal stake for Sharon.

The one part that really fell flat for me was the identity of the bomber. When McCone determined that she'd got it down to two possible people, I wanted to point out that there was a third who'd have been a vastly better candidate, both in terms of psychology considering the motivation for the attacks and in terms of making an interesting story. (And it would have been reasonable for McCone to overlook him.) But no, it wasn't to be. Instead, the actual killer must be a superb actor to pass for a normal person in the way they do, and this isn't at all foreshadowed.

People other than me may not care, but there are some excellent flying sequences. The tech stuff is pretty dated, as is usual when someone writes about something shiny and new that's still changing fast, but mostly it works for the era.

"I'll bet they're using the other services like Prodigy and CompuServe and America Online, as well as the Internet."

"The Internet—that's the monster one you need a road map to use?"

Mick smiled smugly. "Some people need a road map, but not this kid."

That's not McCone's or Muller's strong point, though, and the book's better when it deals with plain old-fashioned detective work. Possibly this goes a little too far in the spy thriller direction, but overall it manages to work, and I continue to enjoy Muller's writing style.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: The McCone Files | Series: Sharon McCone | Next in series: The Broken Promise Land

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1