From Publishers Weekly
Incorporating current ecological concerns and a flavorsome Western setting, this 12th Sharon McCone story ( Trophies and Dead Things ) is top-notch. An investigator for the San Francisco-based All Souls Legal Coop, McCone is asked by former colleague and friend Anne-Marie Altman to look into the strange events taking place at Tufa Lake, modeled after Mono Lake in Yosemite. The Transpacific Corporation has bought the mineral rights to the lake, and the members of the California Coalition for Environmental Protection, for which Altman now works, believe the corporation plans to begin full-scale gold mining--which would endanger the area's fragile ecosystem as well as the historic buildings of a nearby ghost town. Meanwhile, the prospector who sold Transpacific the land is missing and Coalition cabins have been broken into. A murder and a kidnapping soon follow. McCone realizes that she must get to the bottom of the land deal before another killing occurs. Muller intertwines McCone's subliminal dissatisfaction with her current boyfriend and her mother's quest for a life of her own into this suspenseful and fully fashioned tale. Author tour. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Sharon McCone, investigator for San Francisco's All-Souls Legal Co-op (Eye of the Storm, etc., etc.), is trying to find out what's going on around the near-ghost town of Promiseville, once a center of gold mining in California's high desert. A renewed attempt at large-scale mining on land bought by the Japanese-based Transpacific Corporation has come to a complete halt. McCone's ex- colleague, Anne-Marie, heads a conservation group, along with attractive Hy Ripinsky and wimpy Ned Sanderman, that's worried about the real intentions of Transpacific. Then there are the seeming disappearance of old-timer Earl Hopwood, who'd sold his land to the corporation, and the questions of Earl's connection to Mick Erickson, another seller--a connection that surfaces after Erickson's found shot to death. Lots of questions--and none better than McCone at ferreting out answers, despite troubles with lover George, her suddenly liberated mother, and much uneasy self- analysis. Well-done wilderness background, a few mildly intriguing characters, and a terse showdown are the best things in a rambling story that lacks the pithiness and pace of the author's best work. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

Private eye Sharon McCone's twelfth mystery now in paperback. Responding to a former colleague's request for help, Sharon McCone travels to the high-desert town of Tufa Lake, California, to track down a commercial mining operation that could seriously damage the ecosystem . . . and a killer bent on even deadlier destruction. "Fans of Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton . . . are in for a treat."--Kansas City Star.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Private eye Sharon McCone's twelfth mystery now in paperback. Responding to a former colleague's request for help, Sharon McCone travels to the high-desert town of Tufa Lake, California, to track down a commercial mining operation that could seriously damage the ecosystem . . . and a killer bent on even deadlier destruction. "Fans of Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton . . . are in for a treat."--Kansas City Star. HC: Mysterious Press.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly