Double Scoop of Sharon

The Night Searchers
A Sharon McCone Mystery
By Marcia Muller, 2014

The Color of Fear
A Sharon McCone Mystery
By Marcia Muller, 2017

A sure sign of mid-winter madness is my hungering for San Francisco mystery novels.

I’ve reviewed one of Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone books before; she cranks out about one per year and has been doing so for three decades! They are easy to digest and about as flavorful as vanilla ice cream. I read these strictly because they were set in San Francisco, and Muller does not stint in her use of the Bay Area. They also contain undercurrents of social awareness with themes touching homelessness, racism, and SF real estate.

The Night Searchers concerns a client who is sure that there are Satanic Cults doing human sacrifice in building sites. The Color of Fear starts off with Sharon’s father, a Native American Artist of some renown, being attacked in an apparent race-related crime. Those premises are certainly more than enough to get the plots rolling and both books are certainly “breezy”, moving along at a rapid clip with some nice set-pieces that are truly exciting.

If you are familiar with San Francisco it helps in filling out the story, there are even some locales that I wish had been developed further. Like a vanilla cone, any additional scoops are the same.

Not exactly high cusine, but it does satisfy, in an empty calorie sort of way.

See all the FITK San Francisco posts here.