MW

Ms. Muller's books get a lot of stars, so I was expecting something memorable. This is not it, maybe because it was an early book? The characters don't make sense, particularly sharon's relationship with a cop, who is first nasty (in a way that i would consider "over the top" for teasing) and later becomes just as inexplicably friendly. This was very jarring for the reader. I kept wondering why the beneficiary of the will, rather than the executor, was making legal decisions about the estate -- doesn't everyone know that there has to be an executor? this mistake bothered me. Regarding the actual antiques, while I don't really know, I find it hard to believe that business is conducted in the way described. All in all, pretty unpolished.

This is the 1st of the Sharon McCone books. I discovered it when another author's fictional detective referred to McCone on a "case." And holy cow! This book is copyrighted 1977. Where has it been hiding from me? Sharon McCone is quite a bit like Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone (or vice versa), which is truly high praise from me. It's savvy, sexy, exciting stuff. McCone is way cool. EDWIN OF THE IRON SHOES is set mostly in an antique shop with the eerie "characters" of a headless mannequin named Clothilde and a little "boy" named Edwin who has strange iron shoes. The author creates only a sketchy sense of place, but a definite sense of character, with some really fun potental villains. A very interesting ultimate motive for the murder makes for a satisfying ending. I can see why this is such a popular series. I loved it!

It took me a long time to discover Marsha Muller, but I am glad that I finally did. This is the first installment of her Sharon McCone Mystery Series which had a strong influence on later female authors and heroines. Sue Grafton, in a quote on the book jacket calls Muller the "founding mother of the contemporary female hard-boiled private eye". That's quite a claim considering how many well-known female investigators there are in fiction now. In this first installment, Sharon McCone is the investigator for a group of attorneys called All Souls Cooperative. Her boss Hank asks her to investigate the murder of an antique store owner who has been stabbed with one of her own knives. Sharon learns that the dead woman was about to make an important decision about selling her property and she feels that this might be a motive. She also discovers some shady goings-on among the art dealers and tries to fit this in to a motive for murder. Add to this some past and present romances, and there are several possible suspects. Muller's writing is clear and to-the-point. She tells a good story and carefully wraps up each loose end. I look forward to reading the other books in this series, which has so far spanned a 25-year period.

Mrs. Charles is the main character in A Medium For Murder. She believes that she is psychic and uses a crystal ball to tell people their future. Most people thought that she was really odd and didn't like her until they need to find out who murdered Miss Player. I liked this book a lot. It had a lot of passion and made me want to keep reading it. The characters were interesting and I could relate to some of the characters problems because the author went into so much detail. This was a really good mystery book.

39 of the 111 pages consist of full page printed sketches, wich are beautiful. But the text, which is very rare in this book, is sometimes missing, and throughout this book very superficially. Thomas C. Wang describes one (1) pencil technique, which he is using for his sketchings, other methodes are not discussed or even mentioned. I could not recommend this book to anyone, perhaps for very beginning artist, whom are uncertainly in leading a pencil, but even then there are better books.

A great book.

So many art books give long-winded descriptions of what to do, and even how to do it, yet they fail to capture the essence of what makes a drawing good. Wang concentrates on simple elements and rules of thumb, providing a wealth of wisdom in a few words and pictures.

If you're looking for long descriptions of techniques, this is not the book for you. The author quickly notes the salient points and demonstrates with sketches.

This book has beautiful drawings and covers a variety of techniques: how to hold a pencil, line, composition, values and shading, etc. The author also leads you through how to make specific elements: landforms, trees, water, and more.

I remember the first edition of this book from a few years ago. But this new edition is beautiful in and of itself - I flip through it often. But the real bonus was that it inspired me to sketch again - a skill that I haven't used frequently in the past ten or fifteen years. This one's a keeper because it showed me *how* to do it and then showed examples of how it was done by the expert. I've rediscovered my love of sketching.