Vanishing Point (Sharon McCone, #23) by Marcia Muller

Vanishing Point (Sharon McCone, #23) Reviews

• 
  Dagny

  Excellent read with very likeable characters. At first I wasn't very interested in the actual case, but once I was drawn into it I couldn't put the book down.
• 
  Pamela Mclaren

  Twenty-two years ago, a young mother and wife walks away from her family. Within days, the father burns all the woman's creative endeavors and urges the police to bury the missing person case.
  
  Now he has died and his eldest daughter, Jennifer, approaches private investigator Sharon McCone to have her find out what happened to her mother.
  
  And as what happens so often, such an investigation opens up other incidents and a Pandora's box of secrets for the daughters to live with.
  
  McCone works the case with her typical diligence even while trying to adjust to marriage and the continued expansion of her agency. For her, this is a job that hits close to home for her, considering the recent discovery of her own parentage and the changes that have occurred to her family.
  
  This is the 23rd book based on this character and it feels like readers have been p[art of that family, watching her development and maturity. I didn't like McCone at the beginning and it took a while for her to grow into the character that I could like, admire, empathize with. The books are getting better and better as McCone continues to grow and her investigations become more in depth.
• 
  SuperWendy

  Another McCone entry that I inhaled in one sitting. I am trash for female PIs and cold cases - so when authors gives me both in the same book I'll positively wallow in it.
  
  Sharon takes on a 20-year missing persons case, a young wife/mother who just up and vanished, as a favor to former employee Rae Kelleher (who is friends with the missing woman's oldest daughter - who is unraveling at the seams). This story gets Sharon back out in the field while directing her operatives in a "all hands on deck" feel to the mystery. I liked that this one didn't spin out the way I thought it was going to (did I mention I like cold case stories?) and it kept me entertained (and guessing!).
• 
  Terri

  A woman hires Sharon to find out what happened to her mother when she disappeared twenty two years ago. Decent book but I despised the mother.
• 
  Mary

  Continuing on with the challenge to reread Sharon McCone series.
• 
  Shannon Appelcline

  In Vanishing Point, Marcia Muller offers up one of her most intriguing mysteries: a woman gone missing 22 years ago has long been presumed dead, and now Sharon McCone is tasked to figure out what happened.
  
  The joy of this type of mystery is that the reader can imagine thousands of different possibilities. The danger is that the author can't live up to all those expectations. Fortunately, Muller does, offering up an intriguing answer to this mystery with a few surprises along the way.
  
  As usual, one of Muller's strengths is the character building, and there are several haunting character portraits in here.
  
  All told, a deftly told page turner.
  
  
• 
  Gail Burgess

  An old missing person investigation gets even more complicated when the person who hired Sharon also goes missing. All the usual cast of characters pitch in to find them both.... Sharon is just back from getting married and her mom decides to host a party for her. We are reminded that Sharon's messed up family is a lot like our own families!
• 
  Charlena

  First I've read of this series. Stand alone store but not stand alone character development. It just felt like a bunch of rich people meeting other rich people and working for more rich people with a mystery I figured from the first. Blah
• 
  Tonya Lucas

  A very fast paced book. My 1st by this author.
  What would you do if your mom just vanished out of your life forever. No explanation?
  When the past starts to rear it’s ugly head as you begin looking for your mom, only truth can set everyone free.
• 
  Barbara Nutting

  Read 2009
• 
  Ellen Spes

  Good paced. Intelligent female lead.
• 
  Renee

  I didn’t enjoy this novel as much as her other one I read.
• 
  Jeff Johnson

  Somewhat predictable crime mystery. However, I will read another McCone book since there are possibilities here and I was born in San Francisco.
• 
  Bridgette Redman

  Fans of Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone series will appreciate that after the heart-break McCone underwent during The Dangerous Hour, that Muller is letting McCone enjoy a little happiness.
  
  The Vanishing Point opens with McCone’s wedding reception. She and Hy Ripinsky have returned from their spur-of-the-moment trip to Vegas firmly wed. They fly back to find a surprise party waiting for them to usher them into married life. Given that both of them are independent workaholics, it is then appropriate that during the reception, Sharon gets approached with a job request.
  
  McCone and her agency began investigating the 20-year-old disappearance of a wife and mother. The daughter has become increasingly agitated and feels she need to know what happened to her mother. But digging up old history gets someone riled up.
  
  Muller’s latest offering once again showcases the efficiency of McCone’s entire agency. This isn’t a lone private investigator who single-handedly manages to solve the case, track down the villain, and get in a gunfight. She draws upon the resources of a diverse group of people with a variety of talents.
  
  Granted, this means there are a lot of characters—each with their own families and myriad relationships. Sometimes it can get confusing to track all of these characters but for the most part they are distinctly drawn and the reader can quickly place them. This does give an advantage to long-time readers of the series as they’ll be far more intimate with the backgrounds of the large number of recurring characters. However, Muller does provide enough information so that the newcomer to the series is not lost.
  
  McCone also expresses some pretty hard-line attitudes about suicide and abandonment in this book. They’re not comfortable views and more than one reader might find it off-putting. It is these attitudes, though, that help to drive McCone throughout this investigation as she tries to determine what happened to her client’s mother.
  
  Vanishing Point also gives fans of the series their first look at the married life of Hy and Sharon. For anyone who was worried that they would settle into a domesticity that would alienate them from the adventures that make the mysteries fast-paced reading, have no fear. They are far from a conventional couple. Neither of them get much of a honeymoon as they are both pulled away by career demands almost immediately, able to share only a few hours here and there.
  
  While Hy’s career may be primarily a device to keep him from overly interfering with the plot line (and providing the occasional job for McCone), enough tantalizing hints are dropped that one almost wishes Muller would start another series covering Hy’s adventures.
  
  With the July 10, 2006 publication of Vanishing Point, Muller is a year away from the 30th anniversary of McCone’s first appearance. With her marriage, McCone is beginning a new chapter of her life and the series seems far from over. More than a decade after Muller won the Private Eye Writer’s of America Lifetime Achievement Award, she continues to prove that her achievements are still piling up.
• 
  Avid Series Reader

  Vanishing Point by Marcia Muller is the 23rd book of the Sharon McCone mystery series set in late 20th century San Francisco. Sharon finally marries Hy. It's been a very long time coming! The newlyweds are too busy with their careers for a honeymoon (no surprise). Hy's off on a super-secret case (as always) and Sharon's been hired to investigate a 'cold case', a woman who disappeared 22 years ago. The woman's daughter Jennifer started caring about the past soon after her father died. Sharon travels a great deal around California to investigate this case; I primarily enjoyed reading the scenic descriptions, especially the "Lost Coast". As Sharon begins to understand the family undercurrents did not match the lovely facade, the daughter goes missing as well. Sharon's persistent sleuthing and intuition lead her to the surprise resolution. This one's for die-hard McCone fans who've been rooting for Sharon & Hy to wed through many adventures. It's not a good introduction to the McCone series, which should be read in order for best enjoyment.
• 
  LJ

  VANISHING POINT (PI-California-Cont) – G+
  Muller, Marcia – 24th in series
  Mysterious Press, 2006- Hardcover
  *** Newly married PI Sharon McCone is hired by a woman to find her mother who disappeared without a trace 22 years earlier. When the client also disappears, is history repeating itself?
  *** I always enjoy Muller’s books, but this one not quite as much as some others. I do find I miss simplicity of the early McCone stories when she was on her own and there seems to be more action. In this 24th book, there are a lot of characters. Many of them are recurring characters, so one really needs to have read previous books to understand who they are and the relationships. Of the new characters, none of them are very appealing or likable, which is always a problem for me. I also had a problem with the dialogue in that it just didn’t seem to flow smoothly. But the plot was interesting and I did like the book’s sub-theme of marriage. Still, it was a quick read with a plot that kept me interested.
  
• 
  Cat.

  This is the book In Which Sharon Gets Married. At last! She and Hy have been dancing around forever, and it's really about time they settled down. Of course, "settled down" for them is a thin veneer and once the celebration ends, they are each off on their own jobs. Sharon has been asked to look into the disappearance of the mother of a friend some 20 years ago.
  
  In the process of what seems like a beyond-cold case, she discovers that some of the myths we like to keep around family and society are just that: myths. The corollary is that no one really knows what is going on within a marriage except those in the marriage, and when both parties are gone, it's hard to separate fact and appearance.
  
  And, in a seemingly offhand and somewhat cruel way, Hy has suggested that Sharon's home isn't quite up to snuff as a home for a married couple. Is this what marriage is all about??
  
  Though the plot itself is a little threadbare, the scheme of the book is well-thought-out and enjoyable. I always forget--between books--how much I like Sharon and her friends and family.
• 
  Nancy

  Another great book in this series. keep them coming.
  
  In the latest installment in this critically acclaimed series, Sharon McCone is hired to investigate one of San Luis Obispo County's most puzzling cold cases. A generation ago, Laurel Greenwood, a housewife and artist, inexplicably vanished, leaving her young daughter alone. Now, new evidence suggests that the missing woman may have led a strange double life. But before McCone can penetrate the tangled mystery, she must first solve a second disappearance--that of her client, the now grown daughter of Laurel Greenwood. The case, which forces Sharon to explore the darker sides of two marriages, comes uncomfortably close on the heels of her own marriage to Hy Ripinsky, and she begins to doubt the wisdom of her impulsive trip to the Reno wedding chapel.(le
• 
  Kris (My Novelesque Life)

  1.5 STARS
  
  "In the latest installment in this critically acclaimed series, Sharon McCone is hired to investigate one of San Luis Obispo County's most puzzling cold cases. A generation ago, Laurel Greenwood, a housewife and artist, inexplicably vanished, leaving her young daughter alone. Now, new evidence suggests that the missing woman may have led a strange double life. But before McCone can penetrate the tangled mystery, she must first solve a second disappearance--that of her client, the now grown daughter of Laurel Greenwood. The case, which forces Sharon to explore the darker sides of two marriages, comes uncomfortably close on the heels of her own marriage to Hy Ripinsky, and she begins to doubt the wisdom of her impulsive trip to the Reno wedding chapel" (From Amazon)
  
  I did not like it...but could be due to the fact it I started in the middle of the series :(
• 
  Phil

  This is Muller's 27th Sharon McCone mystery - formulaic, to be sure (I've read most, if not all). Unlike a lot of other series, though, the character ages and develops as we read the series. McCone was a younk kid fresh out of the SFFD, struggling to learn the PI business. Now she's a successful owner of a good-size firm, with other people involved in the cases. If you haven't read the others in the series, you might feed lost in all the side characters.
  
  That said, this was a good, quick read - does't take a lot of thought, and somewhat predictable, but do we all want to not know "whodunit" til the last page, or are we looking for a little adventure through the eyes of an old friend?