Burn Out

Marcia Muller
Grand Central Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9780446581073
Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (11/08)

 

“Burn Out” is a mostly-forgettable book starring Sharon McCone, she of Muller’s other novels.  Sharon is a private investigator who owns her own firm and is married to Hy Ripinski, a corporate security specialist.  After a particularly harrowing case (previous novel “The Ever Running Man”), Sharon is burned out and isn’t sure if she wants to continue as a PI.  Struggling against depression and disillusionment, she heads off to her desert ranch to escape and try to heal.  She has vowed to take this time to herself and not to take on any new cases.  Predictably, she gets herself involved in a case pretty quickly.

Her ranch hand Ramon’s niece Hayley has been brutally murdered, although nobody even knew she was back in town.  Hayley’s sister and mother are missing and Sharon offers to help out of loyalty to Ramon. While her intentions are admirable, it seemed too easy to have her wander into something while taking a break.

The more Sharon followed the case and tried to figure out what was going on, the more I grew to dislike her.  As a character, I find her to be extremely annoying. The way she is written, she over thinks everything as a way to narrate the story.  This is distracting and unnecessary.  While it is understood that this is a series of books with the same character, it would be helpful to the reader to explain a bit more about her background (her heritage and adoption that seem to play so much a part of her self-image).  Not everyone will be reading these books in order and need some background information.  Also, her marriage with Hy is a joke in my opinion.  Sharon claims they have a “psychic connection” and goes out of her way to show the reader how close they are, but I never believed it. They are apart more than they are together and when they are together, the conversation and connection feels forced to me. 

Overall, this book is good enough if you have some free time over a weekend and want to curl up with a something that is a light read.  It took no thinking at all to follow the storyline and if you can get past Sharon, it is easy to get caught up in the story and the other characters.  “Burn Out” by Marcia Muller is easy to read but just as easy to forget.

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