The Museum of Mexican Arts in Santa Barbara has the usual problems-chronic budget deficits and wealthy patrons who like to meddle. When Isabel Cunningham, descendant of one of the oldest Spanish land-grant families, donates a garish Tree of Life, the museum's greedy director accepts at once. Frank De Palma knows how to curry favor and raise funds, but in matters of taste, Elena Oliverez recognizes his limitations. The young curator despises the huge ceramic object and considers it an eyesore, while Frank views it as the key to future donations from a very rich patron. In addition, Frank's...
The Museum of Mexican Arts in Santa Barbara has the usual problems-chronic budget deficits and wealthy patrons who like to meddle. When Isabel Cunning...
Ciro Sisneros seems the most harmless of men-a Chicano historian immersed in writing a book about the Great Depression and the Mexican-American agricultural workers of that era. Then why, when he dies of a fall at pool-side in Leisure Village Mobile Home Park, a senior citizens' community near Santa Barbara, does Gabriel a Oliverez insist that he has been murdered? True, Ciro had been warned by an anony-mous caller to stop work on his book-something he had no intention of doing. Gabriela wants her daughter, Elena, to put aside the urgent demands of her job as curator of the Museum of Mexican...
Ciro Sisneros seems the most harmless of men-a Chicano historian immersed in writing a book about the Great Depression and the Mexican-American agricu...
"Sweet Cactus Wine," in which a benign saguaro cactus commits mayhem, was Muller's first Western story. Each tale, including "The Cyaniders" written especially for this collection, is a miniature masterpiece of storytelling, realistic characters, and vivid settings. Even Sharon McCone makes her appearance in two of the stories, "The Lost Coast" and "Knives at Midnight," the latter collected here for the first time. Also included is her only collaboration with her husband, Bill Pronzini, on a Western story. "Caves of Ice" was inspired by a visit to an ice cave in Montana. "Forbidden Things" is...
"Sweet Cactus Wine," in which a benign saguaro cactus commits mayhem, was Muller's first Western story. Each tale, including "The Cyaniders" written e...
In 1895 San Francisco young debutantes don't commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently did, leaping from a foggy parapet in a shimmer of ghostly light. The seemingly impossible disappearance of her body creates an even more serious problem for the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.
Sabina hadn't wanted to take the assignment, but her partner John Quincannon insisted it would serve as entree to the city's ultra rich and powerful. That means money, and Quincannon loves the...
In 1895 San Francisco young debutantes don't commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St...
The Body Snatchers Affair: The latest in the Carpenter and Quincannon historical mystery series set in 1890's San Francisco from Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.
Two missing bodies and two separate investigations take Carpenter and Quincannon from the heights above San Francisco Bay to the depths of Chinatown's opium dens.
For John Quincannon, this is a first: searching a Chinatown opium den for his client's husband, missing in the middle of a brewing tong war set to ignite over the stolen corpse of Bing Ah Kee.
Meanwhile, his partner, Sabina Carpenter, unsure of...
The Body Snatchers Affair: The latest in the Carpenter and Quincannon historical mystery series set in 1890's San Francisco from Marcia Mull...
Finally settled into their new home after losing their house in a fire, and fully established in their new shared offices, private investigator Sharon McCone and her business partner husband Hy are starting to feel comfortable. That calm is shattered when Hy's former colleague Gage Renshaw--a shady troublemaker who they had presumed dead--reappears, and it's unclear what he wants from his prosperous former associate. Meanwhile, Sharon has a new client with a desire to rid a derelict house he's just bought in the city's notorious Western Addition neighborhood from intruders, drug users,...
Finally settled into their new home after losing their house in a fire, and fully established in their new shared offices, private investigator Sharon...
