Marcia Muller Books in Order

Sharon McCone investigates an antiques dealer's murder after earlier arson and vandalism attacks on San Francisco shops. Working for the All Souls Legal Cooperative, she examines rival dealers and redevelopment interests while navigating an uneasy relationship with the police.

An elderly neighbor's murder makes Sharon McCone's troubled friend Linnea the prime suspect. With a fortune-teller's ominous prediction hanging over the apartment building, Sharon must uncover her neighbors' secrets to protect both her friend and her professional standing.

Sharon McCone investigates a friend's death among the people restoring San Francisco's historic Victorian houses. Her search moves through the architectural community and centers on an unusual Tiffany lamp decorated with the grinning face of the Cheshire Cat.

Santa Barbara museum curator Elena Oliverez becomes a suspect when her unpopular director is crushed beneath a ceramic Tree of Life. Promoted to acting director, she examines his files and colleagues, trying to convince police that the murderer remains nearby.

Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, this anthology gathers mystery and suspense stories written by women. Its contributors include Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Shirley Jackson, and P. D. James, bringing together several generations of crime fiction.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini collect mystery and suspense stories centered on children or narrated from their perspectives. The anthology includes William Saroyan's The Beautiful White Horse and selections by writers such as Willa Cather and D. H. Lawrence.

A search for missing social worker Jane Anthony takes Sharon McCone to an isolated coastal village and a prosperous California resort. Suspicious hospice deaths complicate the assignment, and Jane's own death exposes secrets few people want Sharon to investigate.

Sharon McCone helps flea-market dealer Willie Whelan investigate a stalker and becomes entangled in stolen sacred Torah scrolls. Murders and a fanatical conspiracy turn the city's world of informal trading into a dangerous investigation threatening her client and herself.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini edit this anthology of horror and supernatural fiction by women. The collection brings women's writing in these genres together in a volume featuring both mainstream literary authors and writers associated with genre fiction.

Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, this anthology gathers sixteen mystery and suspense stories set in the world of books. Its selections include work by Ellery Queen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Shirley Jackson, and other notable crime writers.

This anthology edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini places crime and detection in academic settings. Its seventeen mystery stories include work by Edgar Allan Poe, Graham Greene, and Shirley Jackson, accompanied by introductory material about campus suspense.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini gather twenty-three mystery and suspense stories involving the fine and popular arts. This themed anthology explores artistic subjects through crime fiction, with Cornell Woolrich among the writers represented in its selections.

Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, this anthology brings together frontier and western stories by women. Contributors include Willa Cather, B. M. Bower, Dorothy M. Johnson, Mary Austin, Gertrude Atherton, and Jeanne Williams.

Museum director Elena Oliverez investigates historian Ciro Cisneros's suspicious death and the burning of his research papers. Retracing his work on California labor struggles leads her to an old shooting whose secrets may still endanger people in Santa Barbara.

Sharon McCone investigates intimidation against Vietnamese families living in a deteriorating Tenderloin apartment building. When harassment becomes murder, the All Souls investigator examines neighborhood figures, property interests, and the surrounding criminal economy to discover who wants the tenants driven out.

This anthology edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini gathers suspense stories set around circuses, carnivals, amusement parks, and sideshows. Contributors include Edgar Allan Poe, Stanley Ellin, Paul Gallico, and Ellery Queen, linking entertainment with crime and danger.

Art-security specialist Joanna Stark leaves her quiet Sonoma retreat after a Frans Hals painting is stolen from San Francisco's de Young Museum. The investigation draws her back into galleries, waterfront haunts, and personal history she had hoped to escape.

Sharon McCone visits Appleby Island to investigate sabotage threatening her sister's plan to convert an old mansion into an inn. A storm cuts off escape as vandalism escalates to murder, trapping the detective with a killer in the Sacramento delta.

Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, and Martin H. Greenberg assemble an anthology devoted to female detectives. Stories featuring Lady Molly, Violet Strange, and Miss Marple appear alongside Stuart Palmer's complete novel Murder on Wheels, covering amateur and professional crime-solvers.

Joanna Stark devises a scheme to recover stolen paintings and trap an art thief connected to her troubled past. An unidentified body in a friend's London flat derails her plans, forcing her into the city's art world and criminal underworld.

A painting of little monetary value but deep personal significance disappears from Joanna Stark's Sonoma Valley home. She suspects her former lover, art dealer Anthony Parducci, may still be alive, turning the theft into a confrontation with her past.

Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, this anthology collects suspense stories involving medicine and medical practitioners. Selections include Arthur Conan Doyle's The Resident Patient, Jacques Futrelle's The Superfluous Finger, and Helen McCloy's The Other Side of the Curtain.

Sharon McCone reexamines the murder of comedian Tracy Kostakos to help a man facing execution at San Quentin. Her inquiry into the performer's colleagues, family, and cruelly satirical routines uncovers evidence that puts the detective herself in danger.

Hired to follow a ranch manager, Sharon McCone discovers that her client has been concealing information. His subsequent murder leaves a homeless man under suspicion, prompting Sharon to search for a fleeing woman and the connection behind the original assignment.

A sniper victim's revised will leaves his fortune to four strangers instead of his children. Sharon McCone investigates for the All Souls Legal Cooperative and finds connections to Vietnam-era activism, an old bombing attempt, and a new series of killings.

This short-story collection includes cases featuring private investigator Sharon McCone and museum curator Elena Oliverez. Muller moves between conventional detective fiction and more unusual mysteries, introducing the selections herself and gathering examples beyond her full-length series novels.

Sharon McCone searches for a missing eccentric near Tufa Lake, where conservationists oppose a large mining operation. The discovery of an investor's body draws her through suspicious land deals and disappearances toward a killer amid California's high-desert landscape.

Sharon McCone reinvestigates Lis Benedict's decades-old murder conviction after her daughter seeks a hearing before the Historical Tribunal. Fresh threats and deaths suggest that someone still profits from the original case and will kill to preserve its secrets.

While considering an administrative promotion, Sharon McCone learns that her lover Hy Ripinsky has vanished during a ransom delivery. Tracing him through Southern California and Mexico, she faces suspicious security operatives and kidnappers while trying to recover both Hy and the money.

Newly independent investigator Sharon McCone accepts a case from eccentric college acquaintance T. J. Gordon, who reports sabotage and death threats. An explosion at his home sends her into his corporate turnaround projects, searching for someone pursuing deadly revenge.

Sharon McCone investigates a bomber targeting diplomatic offices, drawn initially by a million-dollar reward. At an Arab consulate she befriends a lonely nine-year-old, whose disappearance sends Sharon to a Caribbean island on a rescue mission tangled with the bombing case.

This collection gathers Sharon McCone's short investigations during her years at San Francisco's All Souls Legal Cooperative. Cases range from a clown's death and a missing socialite to a gang leader's murder, tracing the detective's work across varied communities.

Country star Ricky Savage, Sharon McCone's brother-in-law, receives anonymous messages demanding answers about a song. Sharon investigates as threats spread to his children, uncovering music-industry grievances while a failing marriage and divided loyalties complicate her family's safety.

Edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, this anthology surveys mystery stories from the 1980s. Contributors include Lawrence Block, Tony Hillerman, Sara Paretsky, and Ruth Rendell, with Edward D. Hoch's introduction examining changes in crime fiction during the decade.

Sharon McCone searches for her flight instructor Matty's missing boyfriend, who has left his young son behind. When Matty dies in a suspicious air-show crash, Sharon and Hy Ripinsky follow the man's concealed history into the aviation business.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini assemble twenty-five stories featuring pairs of crime-solvers, from Holmes and Watson to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. The anthology spans detective styles, eras, and settings, including their own Sharon McCone and Carpenter-Quincannon partnerships.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini collect fourteen stories written separately and together across two decades. Six selections by each author accompany two collaborations, including a case uniting Sharon McCone with Pronzini's Nameless detective, alongside other crime and suspense tales.

An impostor uses Sharon McCone's identity to meet clients and men, then invades her home and targets her family. While investigating office manager Ted Smalley's unusual behavior, Sharon must stop the double before her reputation and safety are destroyed.

Sharon McCone travels to Kauai after filmmaker Glenna Stanleigh reports sabotage on a documentary set. Investigating with help from Hy Ripinsky's security connections, she explores an influential family's missing members, local history, and the increasingly dangerous events surrounding the production.

These stories present Sharon McCone's agency through her own voice and those of colleagues, nephew Mick Savage, and lover Hy Ripinsky. Investigations involve a missing teenager, a dead artist's sculpture, a rundown hotel's jukebox, and exploitation in a sweatshop.

After her father's death, Sharon McCone discovers adoption papers and begins searching for her biological parents. The investigation takes her to Native American communities in Montana and Idaho, where concealed history and determined resistance turn her personal quest dangerous.

A woman's murdered body washes ashore near Point Deception, reviving fears of an unsolved massacre years earlier. Deputy Rhoda Swift joins journalist Guy Newberry to investigate, confronting troubling questions about the community and the price of justice.

Grieving her brother's suicide, Sharon McCone investigates a wrongful-death claim involving a young magazine employee. Evidence of workplace misconduct and computer espionage turns the apparent suicide into a dangerous case, with further violence threatening those who know the truth.

Fourteen years after his wife's disappearance destroyed his reputation, Matthew Lindstrom learns she may be alive in Cyanide Wells. Before he can confront her, she vanishes again, forcing him to seek answers with a local woman hiding her own secrets.

These Western stories explore violence, memory, and resilience in frontier settings. A widow fends off an unwanted suitor, geologists pursue a mining-town killer, and a woman confronts her history in an abandoned mountain cabin.

When investigator Julia Rafael is accused of stealing a client's credit card, Sharon McCone's growing agency faces ruin. Determined to establish the truth, Sharon discovers evidence of a deliberate attack against the business she has built.

A corporation's plan to export water from a northern California river divides Cape Perdido. Environmental campaigners and residents confront old secrets as a sniper's shot transforms a fight over resources into a chain of violence and revenge.

Sharon McCone investigates an artist and housewife's disappearance decades earlier, finding signs of a concealed life. When the missing woman's grown daughter also vanishes, the case raises disturbing questions about two marriages and Sharon's own recent wedding.

A storm gathers over a stage station where a missing daughter, a runaway couple, and a pursuing Pinkerton agent bring competing troubles. The title Western mystery anchors a collection of stories about danger and concealed pasts.

This collection brings together detective stories, Western tales, and ghost stories, including cases for Sharon McCone and Rae Kelleher. Investigations range from a missing teenager's bedroom clues to a search amid San Francisco's earthquake rubble.

A bomber threatens a security firm, and Sharon McCone narrowly escapes an explosion at its offices. Pursuing the elusive attacker forces her to question her husband's role in the company's hidden past, putting their marriage and safety at risk.

Exhausted by a dangerous case, Sharon McCone retreats to her desert ranch and considers leaving investigation behind. A troubled woman's family draws her back into a mystery involving murder, a deserted resort, and violence across the California-Nevada border.

An unknown attacker shoots Sharon McCone, leaving her conscious but almost entirely paralyzed. While her agency investigates the assault, she evaluates their findings from her hospital bed, trying to uncover the person who may still threaten her life.

Recovering from paralysis, Sharon McCone struggles to regain independence while others question her abilities. The disappearance of a friend from physical therapy draws her into a dangerous investigation that reaches beyond a personal mystery into national security.

An unanswered plea from her troubled half brother sends Sharon McCone searching through San Francisco. His trail leads to a woman's body and an old heiress's murder, forcing Sharon to untangle the connections before he becomes another victim.

Acquitted of murdering her best friend, Caro Warrick hires Sharon McCone to dispel the suspicion that still damages her life. A brutal attack on Caro changes the investigation, revealing an unresolved threat to others connected with the case.

Sharon McCone moves her agency into promising new offices, only to encounter more than ordinary property problems. Rumored nineteenth-century ghosts and a dubious organization turn the building itself into an unexpected source of mystery and trouble.

A woman living in an old Victorian house learns that her daughter is contacting ghosts through a Ouija board. The spirits' account of their past begins to echo the family's present, blurring the boundary between historical haunting and current danger.

A mother asks All Souls to find her ten-year-old daughter, who disappeared after riding a merry-go-round. Her reluctance to involve police complicates Sharon McCone's investigation, suggesting the missing-child case conceals a more difficult family story.

A woman's report of a ritual threatening an infant brings Sharon McCone an unusual case. Her inquiries reveal the husband's ties to a secretive treasure-hunting group, prompting Sharon and her nephew to investigate its nighttime activities from within.

A supposedly dead enemy returns to harass Sharon McCone and her husband while they work on a neglected Victorian property. A body and the man's interest in the building turn a routine assignment into an increasingly personal threat.

A racist attack leaves Sharon McCone's Shoshone father in a coma during a holiday visit. Dissatisfied with police progress, she pursues his attackers herself, receiving threats that reveal the danger extends beyond the assault to her own safety.

Checking on a missing house renovator leads Sharon McCone to a former nightclub with a secret room filled with images of killers. The disturbing discovery turns her search into a race to prevent another murder.

Sharon McCone goes undercover in remote northern California after two Indigenous women are murdered and officials dismiss possible connections. Hired by an advocacy organization, she confronts local corruption while investigating a killer who may turn on her.

Sharon McCone investigates escalating pranks against luxury homes on San Francisco’s private streets. An attack on her, a meth-lab explosion, and murder expose a larger scheme, especially when a trusted employee becomes implicated in the danger.

Sharon McCone investigates cases across San Francisco, the Bay Area, and California’s remote coast in this selected story collection. Familiar colleagues accompany encounters with victims and criminals whose conflicting motives reveal the human pressures beneath each mystery.