Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (USA 2012)

From the Publisher:
It looked like a lost cause. Convicted of a brutal society murder in 1956, Lis Benedict had served a long sentence and just been released from jail. Then in a last desperate attempt to clear the Benedict name, her daughter Judy convinces All Souls Legal Cooperative to take her mother's case before the Historical Tribunal. Sharon McCone loves a challenge but has little affection for the cold and unlikable Lis. Then, suddenly, the woman in question is dead, a vicious threat is scrawled in red paint across the front of Sharon's house, and San Francisco's #1 P.I. is following a fresh trail of death that leads back to a wild debutante, a prestigious think tank, and the power of politics of the '50s... all in search of a killer who has engineered a fatal cover-up and built a brilliant career on murder.

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes. A Sharon McCone Mystery. Warner Books, ISBN: 9780792782711 (March, 2012), eBook, 332 KB (ca. 272 p.), $9.99.

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
It looked like a lost cause. Convicted of a brutal society murder in 1956, Lis Benedict had served a long sentence and just been released from jail. Then in a last desperate attempt to clear the Benedict name, her daughter Judy convinces All Souls Legal Cooperative to take her mother's case before the Historical Tribunal. Sharon McCone loves a challenge but has little affection for the cold and unlikable Lis. Then, suddenly, the woman in question is dead, a vicious threat is scrawled in red paint across the front of Sharon's house, and San Francisco's #1 P.I. is following a fresh trail of death that leads back to a wild debutante, a prestigious think tank, and the power politics of the '50s... all in search of a killer who has engineered a fatal cover-up and built a brilliant career on murder.

"CLEVER AND WELL TOLD... MULLER AND MCCONE ARE STILL THE CLASS OF THE FIELD." -- San Diego Union-Tribune
"A BRISKLY PACED DYNAMIC MYSTERY... Fifteen years after her introduction, Sharon McCone is still one of the freshest and most intriguing private eyes around." -- Baltimore Sun

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes. A Sharon McCone Mystery. Warner Books, ISBN: 0446400335 (July, 1993), 320 p., $4.99.

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (UK 1993)

From the Publisher:
The latest Sharon McCone mystery, in which she re-investigates the case of a woman who was convicted of murder in 1956, and who is released still protesting her innocence. McCone finds herself the target of someone who does not want the case reopened.

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes. A Sharon McCone Mystery. The Women's Press, ISBN: 0704343371 (February, 1993), 297 p., £5.99.

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
In her thirteenth case, Sharon McCone investigates an infamous, 36-year-old slaying -- known as the "Two Penny Murder" -- of a San Francisco debutante. Lis Benedict, convicted in 1956 of brutally murdering wild society girl Cordy McKittridge, has been released from prison -- insisting, as she has all along, that she is innocent. Lis' daughter Judy, still racked with guilt over having testified against her mother, wants the All Souls Legal Cooperative to take the case before the city's Historical Tribunal, a quasi-legal body dedicated to righting old wrongs.

Sharon undertakes the case reluctantly; she doesn't like Lis Benedict and finds the murder unusually grisly and repugnant. But her belief in Benedict's innocence is strengthened by a campaign of harassment directed at the woman, which quickly escalates into real violence. Soon Sharon herself becomes a target, and she realizes that she has developed an odd and unsettling emotional connection with events many years in the past.

Her suspects include a state supreme court justice with a tarnished reputation, a former society matron turned liberal crusader, the director of one of the country's most influential think tanks, and an elusive man who may have been a Communist fellow traveler -- all of whom have their reasons for not wanting the McKittridge case reopened. The court date rapidly approaches, and Sharon races against the calendar -- delving into rumors of a massive high-level cover-up to identify a killer whose motives are deeply rooted in the tragedies of one of our country's most ruthless decades.

MARCIA MULLER pioneered the contemporary female private eye novel -- the first Sharon McCone mystery, Edwin of the Iron Shoes, was published in 1977. Over the past fifteen years the McCone series has spawned wide critical acclaim, a loyal and ever-growing circle of readers, and dozens of hard-boiled imitators. PENNIES ON A DEAD WOMAN'S EYES is the thirteenth mystery outing for the San Francisco private investigator.

In addition to her success as a novelist, Muller is also a well-known anthologist and critic. With Bill Pronzini, she has edited several collections of short mystery stories and the comprehensive 1986 reference work 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction.

Marcia Muller lives in northern California

Marcia Muller: Pennies on a Dead Woman's Eyes. A Sharon McCone Mystery. The Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0892964545 (July, 1992), 297 p., $18.95.