Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread (USA 2011)

From the Publisher:
Bobby Foster, car-hop at the chic Cafe Comedie, is going to the gas chamber. He's already confessed to the murder of Tracy Kostakos, the club's rising star. But two years after the crime, Tracy's body is still missing and Bobby's confession is full of holes. All Souls Legal Cooperative's final appeal sends San Francisco's #1 P.I. Sharon McCone behind the footlights into the super-charged arena of anxious club owners and aspiring young hopefuls... into the fractured world of Tracy's privileged family and the mind of a young comedienne who was not the good little girl they thought they knew... into a labyrinth of death and deception where someone will kill to laugh last and get away with murder.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread. A Sharon McCone Mystery. Blackstone, ISBN: 9781609986193 (October, 2011), eBook, 501 KB (ca. 255 p.), $6.99.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
Bobby Foster, car-hop at the chic Cafe Comedie, is going to the gas chamber. He's already confessed to the murder of Tracy Kostakos, the club's rising star. But two years after the crime, Tracy's body is still missing and Bobby's confession is full of holes. All Souls Legal Cooperative's final appeal sends San Francisco's #1 P.I. Sharon McCone behind the footlights into the super-charged arena of anxious club owners and aspiring young hopefuls... into the fractured world of Tracy's privileged family and the mind of a young comedienne who was not the good little girl they thought they knew... into a labyrinth of death and deception where someone will kill to laugh last and get away with murder.

"WITH THIS EXTRAORDINARILY COMPLEX, GRIPPING NOVEL, MULLER SURPASSES THE PREVIOUS STORIES OF SHARON McCONE." -- Milwaukee Journal
"MARVELOUS, FULL OF DARK CORNERS AND SURPRISING TWISTS." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

MARCIA MULLER's Sharon McCone mysteries have won her critical acclaim and a devoted audience. With Sharon McCone, Ms. Muller has pioneered the hard-boiled female P.I. and created a character that has found a home in the hearts of mystery lovers everywhere.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread. A Sharon McCone Mystery. Mysterious Press published by Warner Books, ISBN: 0445409169 (July, 1993), 282 p., $5.99.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
The Women's Press Ltd First British Publication
Introducing Sharon McCone, Private Investigator.
Sharon McCone. Private Eye. Strong, clear-headed, intuitive, just. In search of truth and a decent bowl of chilli, she intrepidly investigates downtown San Francisco crime.

Now she is called in to reopen a two-year-old 'no-body' murder - the murder of a rising comic actress. The trail is long cold, and a black youth faces the death penalty. But when McCone discovers the remains of a corpse, it turns out to be just the first of a series of sickening and horrifying revelations...

'A gripping novel... McCone is one of the most freshly conceived and complexly characterized of the female private eyes' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

'Marcia Muller has received a good deal of attention for her McCone novels and she deserves all of it' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

The best Sharon McCone novel yet! If you've never read McCone (or Muller) BUY THIS BOOK!' ROBERT CRAIS, AUTHOR OF STALKING ANGEL

'Engrossing' KIRKUS

'Provocative... infused with compassion and sensitivity' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread. A Sharon McCone Mystery. The Women's Press, ISBN: 0704343134 (March, 1992), 218 p., £5.95.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
PRIVATE EYE SHARON McCONE is enlisted into a case that had made lurid headlines ten years earlier: it was then that Bobby Foster, ex-crack addict and parking valet at the trendy Cafe Comedie, confessed to the kidnapping and murder of young stand-up comic Tracy Kostakos.

Foster's lawyer at the All Souls Legal Cooperative thinks that the real story didn't come out at the trial. After all, the body was never found.

Assigned to dig up additional facts, Sharon finds that Kostakos's co-comics had been strangely silent during the investigation. Was Tracy really the "good girl" her parents thought? And weren't the socially aware real estate developers who own the club just a bit too smooth?

Sharon's quiet investigation into the hip stand-up comedian subculture soon leads to explosive revelations about the darker side of comedy.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread. A Sharon McCone Mystery. Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0445409169 (October, 1990), 282 p., $4.99.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
"Marcia Muller has received a good deal of attention for her McCone novels, and she deserves all of it"-so says the New York Times Book Review. Now, in her tenth appearance, private eye Sharon McCone is enlisted into a baffling case that had made lurid headlines two years earlier.

It was then that Bobby Foster, an ex-crack addict and parking valet at the trendy Cafe Comedie, confessed to the kidnapping and murder of a young stand-up comic. At the time of her disappearance, Tracy Kostakos had been drawing droves of fans to the club with her sharp, often vicious humor.

Foster's lawyer at the All Souls Legal Cooperative thinks that the real story didn't come out at the trial. After all, the body was never found.

Assigned to dig up additional facts, McCone turns up some odd ones. Police records and trial transcripts show that Kostakos' co-comics were strangely silent during the investigation. Was Tracy really the "good girl" her parents thought? And weren't the socially aware real estate developers who own the club just a bit too smooth?

McCone's quiet investigation into the hip stand-up comic subculture soon leads to explosive revelations about the darker side of comedy.

Marcia Muller: The Shape of Dread. A Sharon McCone Mystery. Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0892962712 (November, 1989), 218 p., $16.95.