Important Sharon McCone mystery in that Sharon discovers her real family, but overall, a poorly written story in that it would have been better as a tight novella or perhaps a longer, more fleshed out novel. It's hard for a practiced genre author to mess up the writing, but easier to mess up if you are playing too many writer tricks with the writing. Muller played up atmosphere over substance, was a little lazy in plotting and characterization (relying on exposition by incredibly confessional characters), but did her homework on the historical facts regarding how the USA handled the forcing of American Natives onto Reservations and then starved them of resources, including food. Sadly, despite the importance of the story to learning about the fictionalized history of McCone, this book is not that good, a two and a half star rating in my opinion.
I read this before, but forgot it almost completely (remembered one incident on page 19). In this mystery, Sharon McCone discovers that she is adopted, and the mystery takes her in search of her roots, and, incidently, some murder. Well, not so incidently. There's lots of suspense, danger, and well-hidden facts that must be ferreted out. The title refers to the hesitations people make when they either don't want to tell the truth, don't know it, or want to keep a secret. That was an interesting take on the dialogue, something the viewpoint character, Sharon McCone, kept trying out to discover what was really going on.
What do You think about Listen To The Silence (2001)?
This is the 10th book by this author that I have read. Most of them have been about Sharon McCone, a private detective in the San Francisco area. I haven't read them in any particular order, so I was excited to find this one. In the other books there are references to Sharon's Native American background and her finding her biological parents late in life....this book is about how she finds out that she was adopted and how she traces her family, with mystery and murder thrown in, of course. I always enjoy these books, but this was especially good because of the family thing.
—Sarah Keith
In the 20th installment of Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone PI series, Listen to the Silence, Sharon learned a shocking twist about her life. When she attended a joyous wedding, she had found out that her father had died. After she mourned his loss, she learned something that really startled her. She was adopted. That made her puzzled on why she didn't look like her fellow siblings. From there, it took her to Montana to discover the truth behind her birth and to find her birth parents, while she was on the case on the attempted lawyer and threats were made on her life. She needed to listen carefully, before the bullet would take her down.
—Kristen
