The Broken Promise Land

Starred review from June 3, 1996
Muller surpasses herself with this vigorous and trenchant mystery thriller, exploring stardom and family life, ambition and revenge, loneliness and conflicting loyalties. In her 17th appearance (after A Wild and Lonely Place and Wolf in the Shadows), the continuously evolving San Francisco PI Sharon McCone, now the head of her own small firm, learns from her brother-in-law, country music megastar Ricky Savage, of increasingly incoherent anonymous notes being sent to his unlisted address, all asking the same question: "Whatever happened to my song?" Agreeing to investigate, Sharon is propelled into both the twisted, oversized world of celebrity and the more intimate devastation occurring within her sister Charlene's family. At the Savage mansion in San Diego hills, Sharon and her lover, security specialist Hy Ripinsky, find the family in turmoil, with Ricky and Charlene, who has found someone new, on the verge of divorce. As the threats escalate to include the six Savage children, safeguards are breached and Ricky's manager is injured in a shooting. With Ricky's major tour approaching, Sharon links the notes to an aspiring singer with whom Ricky had a one-night stand in Texas years before, a woman who pursued him so relentlessly he sent two of his band members, now deceased, to rough her up. While Sharon's associate and friend Rae Kelleher is increasingly involved in tracking down the Texas singer-and with Ricky-Sharon wonders if she and Hy might also be drifting apart. Leading Sharon into the rocky psychological terrain of families, Muller gives her meticulously plotted story, with its absorbing picture of the music industry, a commanding emotional authenticity. Mystery Guild selection.

May 1, 1996
Sharon McCone's latest brings danger close to home as McCone attempts to protect her brother-in-law, country singer Ricky Savage. Threatening letters disturb his already disintegrating marriage, but McCone can help only if Savage comes clean about his past. A necessary purchase.

April 1, 1996
San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone returns in a superbly plotted, briskly paced mystery. Investigating a series of threatening letters sent to her brother-in-law, country singer Ricky Savage, McCone gets embroiled in a chilling case involving someone determined to halt his rising star. Suspects range from higher-ups at the singer's former record label, who resent Savage for starting his own record company, to a former lover, who holds him accountable for alleged promises never kept. Whoever it is has unique access to Savage, his family, and his band; leaves plenty of clues; and jeopardizes the release of Savage's latest record and the launching of his promotional tour. To complicate things further, Savage's marriage to McCone's sister is on the rocks, and he takes up with one of McCone's agents. Despite the assistance of McCone's lover, Hy Ripinsky, and his high-powered security firm, the threats multiply. In the seventeenth McCone caper, Muller reveals the underbelly of the recording industry, showing how success makes strange bedfellows and how fame can take a terrible toll. As the story races to a stunning climax, its aura of paranoia becomes nearly palpable. ((Reviewed April 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)