Monday, February 15, 2016

Wolf in the Shadows

By Marcia Muller

Sharon McCone works as an investigator for a small law firm. She also has a budding relationship with a man of mystery, Hy Ripinsky. But Hy has disappeared, and the security firm that hired him is very angry because the ransom, a Letter of Credit for $2,000,000, has disappeared along with him.
The ransom is for the founder of a biotech firm that is on the cusp on developing a new cancer drug, a drug derived from the tissue of dolphins. An environmental group is claiming to be holding the man as retaliation for the company's use of dolphins in their research.
Hy was hired by the company's security firm to exchange the ransom for the missing man because he knows one of the leaders of the eco-terrorists.
But something goes wrong during the exchange. Hy's rental car is found wrecked and a dead man matching Hy's description is discovered at the site of the exchange. Now the security firm's people think Hy was part of the kidnapping scheme.
So Sharon leaves her job and sets out to track down her lost lover and clear his good name. She will have to get to know a  set of very iffy and nervous individuals and will travel to Baja Mexico, to the home of a dangerous Mexican criminal. In the process, she will discover the truth about this kidnapping and learn a bit more about the man she loves.

This was a good read. I enjoyed the author's writing style, it is clean and clear and comprehensible. It's a good mystery story too, and her hero, the investigator Sharon McCone, doesn't disappoint and doesn't get her ass handed to her like so many women detectives in stories nowadays seem to do.
This is my first experience with this series. And based on this book, I am looking forward to reading more about the admirable, redoubtable Sharon McCone.

For another review, see http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-89296-525-0.

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