Shape of Dread: A Sharon McCone Mystery

With this extraordinarily complex, gripping novel, Muller surpasses the previous stories of Sharon McCone, San Francisco-based private eye. Sharon relates details in the case that takes her to meet Bobby Fisher in San Quentin where he's doomed to the gas chamber for the murder of Tracy Kostakos, a popular comic. Hoping to save Bobby, the investigator questions the owners of the Club Comedie, Jay Larkey and his partner, Rob Soriano, Soriano's wife and everyone else who had known Tracy, including her parents, fiance and roommate. The consensus is that the witty monologuist paradoxically lacked a sense of humor but had created hilarious routines by cruelly parodying people close to her. Digging deeper into the said already, ok? entertainer's past, Sharon unearths evidence that she may pay for with her own life. Evoking the atmosphere of San Francisco's special places, Muller makes one feel particularly the ``shape of dread'' on death row and provokes thought on the finality of capital punishment. (Dec.)