Mature McCone Inherits Family Intrigue and a New Case

Marcia Muller’s series character Sharon McCone, who made her debut in 1977’s “Edwin of the Iron Shoes,” is generally considered the godmother of today’s independent female private investigators. She wasn’t fiction’s first woman PI. Rex Stout’s Dol Bonner and Erle Stanley Gardner’s Bertha Cool were just a couple who’d made it into print decades before. She wasn’t even the first female shamus to come from a woman’s pen. In the late ‘50s, Gloria Fickling and her husband, Forrest, gave the world Honey West, while P.D. James’ Cordelia Gray bumbled her way through her premiere investigation in the early ‘70s.

Two unique characteristics made McCone the archetype for future sisters in crime-busting: her independence and her humanity. She didn’t inherit an agency from a suddenly departed boss-husband-lover, nor was she a partner with a male who did the heavy work. She was, and is, a believably complex and fallible human who made a career decision to assist people in need.

Since then, she and her creator have continued to become more confident and successful. And better at their jobs. Their newest novel, “Listen to the Silence” (Mysterious Press, $23.95, 304 pages), is proof of their progress. In 23 years, Muller has turned over quite a few key cards in her character’s biographical and emotional deck. Here she plays an ace. When the detective’s father dies, she discovers something shocking among his remains: proof of her adoption. Filled with grief and anger and confusion, she sets out to find her birth parents.

The quest takes her to a Shoshone Indian reservation in Idaho and into the middle of a battle over land and a 40-year-old murder case. But Muller’s interest is clearly not on the plot’s criminal elements. Though they impact upon McCone’s emotionally charged parent hunt, the heart of the novel is in the untangling of family roots rather than in the unmasking of a killer. Far from being a failing, this shift in emphasis distinguishes the novel as a series best.

In Raymond Chandler’s much-quoted essay on mystery writing, “The Simple Art of Murder,” he notes that “the detective in this kind of story . . . must be a complete man.” Yet when he and his contemporaries provided readers with their detectives’ biographical data, they were a little shy of “complete.” It took Muller and her contemporaries to add that critical dimension.

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Iris Johansen’s new “The Search” (Bantam, $24.95, 384 pages) marks the return of forensic sculptor Eve Duncan, who served as the protagonist of “The Face of Deception” (1998) and “The Killing Game” (1999). In the former, tycoon John Logan hires her to reconstruct a skull (possibly belonging to JFK), and danger and romance follow. In the latter, Eve is assisted by search-and-rescue worker Sarah Patrick and her beloved golden retriever, Monty, in a hunt for the maniac who claims to have murdered her daughter. This time out, Eve is merely along for the ride. Sarah takes the lead, being pursued by an avenging madman . . . and by the apparently fickle multimillionaire Logan.

The controlling but undeniably dashing Daddy Warbucks needs her (and Monty) to help him find the hidden lair of his dark adversary, Martin Rudzak, a villain so heinous he causes a Taiwanese mudslide, smothering hundreds, just to let Logan know the extent of his hatred. Many murders ensue, and much territory is covered, as the seemingly omniscient Rudzak keeps his evil eye on the bickering-but-falling-in-love Sarah and Logan, the dog, and, presumably because of her former association with Logan, Eve and her new nuclear family. It’s comic book stuff, but Johansen is an entertaining yarn-spinner and knows exactly how much “Brenda Starr” and how much James Bond to put into the mix to keep everybody happily turning pages.

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The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’ Gorman on audio books.