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One of the most enjoyable "tasks" I ever had to perform as a committee member for Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention in 1994, was to call Marcia Muller back in our earliest planning stages, and ask her if she would be our guest of honor. it was fun because she so clearly deserved it, as our committee's no-argument instant agreement indicated, and it was fun because I surprised the bejeesus out of Marcia. I sat there on the phone laughing, as there was dead silence on the other end. She seemed dumfounded; it had never occurred to her that a phone call from a friend from Seattle, where there was a Bouchercon being planned, had anything more to it than a chat. Marcia Muller spent too many years being unappreciated and under-appreciated as a fine writer. She seems now, twenty-plus years after the appearance of Edwin Of The Iron Shoes to be getting the recognition she deserves for her superbly crafted plots, her gorgeous use of setting, whether it be dreary streets in San Francisco, the vividness of the wine country and the glories of the California coast. Then there are her wonderful, rich, anything-but-ordinary characters. One reason Muller's better known is due to two collections of Muller short stories by Crippen and Landru press. If you don't know these folks a) you should and b) you will. C&L, run by Doug and Sandi Greene, has, since 1994 offered high quality single author short story collections. McCone and Friends, just issued, is the long-awaited follow-up volume to 1995's McCone Files, one of the first volumes C&L published. One notable thing about this short story collection is the title tells you about the contents; the stories in the volume are not just narrated by private investigator Sharon McCone, but also by Rue Kelleher, Mick Savage, Hy Ripinsky and Ted Smalley. These names should ring bells to Muller regulars; they are long-time colleagues, friends, and associates of McCone; Ripinsky is her lover, Mick, her nephew, son of her famous country singing star brother-in-law. The stories are fascinating in their perspectives; seeing Sharon from Rae's point of view was an eye-opener for me, who has read every McCone more than once (and yes, the Elena Oliverez and Joanna Stark as well). It is no easy thing to use a different narrative voice successfully, and it must be especially difficult when a writer has gotten to know a character through twenty-plus books. But Muller does it with ease. It's not perfect, but then, one reason Sharon and Rae work together is that they are more alike than sometimes either is comfortable with. Hy Ripinsky and Sharon know each other so very well, that he will know what she is thinking and often what she will do next. These stories are so welcome. I love "Up at the Riverside" a story that features Ted Smalley, office manager and heart of the operation; I've always liked Ted, even when he had bit parts in the All Souls books. And you get to know Rae so much better by reading "The Wall" and "The Holes in the System". As with all Marcia's writing, the stories deal with real life issues - like "illegals" forced to work in sweatshops, unhappy teenagers with controlling boyfriends - and real feelings, rage, love, jealousy anger, all the things that make us human. My major regret about McCone and Friends is that I finished it too soon. There were only eight stories in the collection and I would happily have read several more by Hy and Ted alone. I only hope that Crippen & Landru have plans for more McCone anthologies. -- http://www.drizzle.com/~roscoe - Stu & Andi's "The Roscoe Page" Check out the new 'Roscoe Store' pages at CafePress! We now have an assortment of imprinted items with original Stu Shiffman art: http://www.cafeshops.com/cp/store.aspx?s=roscoestore -
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, February 2000
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