Reviewed by Elaine Broome, MyShelf.com
Buy a Copy

Ever since Sharon McCone hit 40, forty has been hitting back - hard! In Marcia Muller's Dead Midnight, Sharon is trying to make sense of her life and having a difficult time doing it. Still dazed from her father's death and the discovery that she was adopted, McCone is again shell-shocked at news of her brother's suicide. In the midst of her grief and anger, she is offered a unique case, one that she is at first reluctant to take. The Nagasawa family, grief-stricken after their son Roger's suicide, hires an attorney and McCone to find out what caused their son to jump from a bridge. Who is really to blame? Did his job at trendy but troubled InSite Magazine make him jump? Although she questions the Nagasawa's plan to sue the magazine, she agrees to look into Roger's death partly out of curiosity and partly as therapy.

In Dead Midnight, Marcia Muller takes us down two paths: the resolution of questions about Roger's suicide and about her brother Joey's death. As she talks to Roger's colleagues and friends, McCone sees a trail of deceit and danger that leads through the sleek, pressure-packed offices of InSite. As employees (and millions of dollars) begin disappearing, she realizes that Roger knew something that scared him to death . . . and she may be next.

McCone finds that where Joey is concerned, she has fewer answers. Did she ever know her troubled brother? Should she have seen that he needed help? Is she lacking in compassion? What about blame?

It's been way too long between Sharon McCone books! Like a fine, rich wine she (and the series) improves with age. Dead Midnight is a great combination of absorbing plot, wonderful characters, and thought provoking questions. Marcia Muller has done it again!