Games to Keep the Dark Away
The Sharon McCone Mysteries: Book #4
- By: Marcia Muller
- Narrated by: Laura Hicks
- Length: 5 hours 49 minutes
Description
Picture Salmon Bay: an isolated, run-down northern California village, home to an idle fleet of fishing boats, a deserted amusement park, and a handful of secretive, even hostile residents. When private investigator Sharon McCone arrives in search of one of the town's wayward daughters, the trail leads to the thriving resort of Port San Marco.
McCone believes that the missing woman, a former social worker named Jane Anthony, was involved in the suspicious deaths of three terminally ill patients at an exclusive hospice. But the elusive Jane Anthony turns up all too soon-washed up beneath a rotting pier in her Salmon Bay. McCone discovers that no one-not her client, a reclusive photographer, nor Jane's mother, nor her hospice employers-wants to find out why she died.
Then the killer strikes again, Jane's secret life comes into focus, and McCone finds that someone wants her out of the picture-permanently.
Audiobook gift memberships
Gift audiobooks to anyone in the world (including yourself!) from the comfort of your home. You choose the membership (1, 3, 6, or 12 months/credits), your gift recipient picks their own audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start gifting
The Sharon McCone Mysteries Series

Edwin of the Iron Shoes
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 5 hours 32 minutes
Abridged: No
It's Sharon McCone’s first case as staff investigator for All Souls Legal Cooperative. She knows nothing about antiques, yet she has an affection for Salem Street with its charming mix of antique and curio shops. Now elderly dealer Joan Albritton has been found dead, stabbed with an antique dagger. Her neighbors are shocked. Recurring vandalism... Read more »
Learn more
Ask the Cards a Question
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 5 hours 34 minutes
Abridged: No
There's trouble in Sharon McCone's quiet San Francisco apartment building. Madame Anya, with her cards, her tamed crow, and her candles, had predicted evil for Molly Antonio. Linnea Carraway, drinking heavily and careening in the wake of a divorce, had argued with her. Now the sweet, elderly lady lies dead in her apartment. Linnea, last to see... Read more »
Learn more
The Cheshire Cat’s Eye
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 5 hours 33 minutes
Abridged: No
To tourists, bay-windowed Victorian mansions are quaint, peaceful symbols of old San Francisco, but on the secluded hill above Steiner Street, the gingerbread has sparked a bitter battle. Ambitious developers are pushing for restoration, and residents are fighting for their homes-until a controversial restorationist is found dead on the job,... Read more »
Learn more
Games to Keep the Dark Away
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 5 hours 49 minutes
Abridged: No
Picture Salmon Bay: an isolated, run-down northern California village, home to an idle fleet of fishing boats, a deserted amusement park, and a handful of secretive, even hostile residents. When private investigator Sharon McCone arrives in search of one of the town's wayward daughters, the trail leads to the thriving resort of Port San... Read more »
Learn more
Leave a Message for Willie
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 6 hours 28 minutes
Abridged: No
Amid the shifting world of San Francisco flea markets, shady vendors sell junk, precious antiques, and stolen goods side by side. Somewhere in the mix, a priceless collection of sacred Torah scrolls is gathering dust—and attracting a group of fanatical killers. When private investigator Sharon McCone helps one flea market kingpin fend off a... Read more »
Learn more
There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 7 hours 32 minutes
Abridged: No
The Globe Apartments, six stories of decaying brick and concrete, rises above San Francisco’s volatile Tenderloin district. The seedy former hotel, once a haven for the city’s down and out, now houses Vietnamese families striving to improve their lives. But private eye Sharon McCone believes that someone from the Tenderloins shadowy underworld... Read more »
Learn more
Eye of the Storm
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 9 hours 39 minutes
Abridged: No
Appleby Island, once the magnificent home of a tycoon and planter, is a place of history and mystery in the Sacramento delta. Its story includes hints of tragedy, fueling rumors that ghosts still walk its derelict orchards. Now Patsy McCone, her new lover, and a group of invetors are turning the old mansion into an elegant bed and breakfast.... Read more »
Learn more
There’s Something in a Sunday
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 8 hours 42 minutes
Abridged: No
It’s a cold Sunday in San Francisco. Sharon McCone’s alone on a routine surveillance job, following a man named Frank Wilkonson through the city’s lush horticultural hot spots to the sere foothills of the Diablos. But when she returns to find her kindly old client in a pool of blood, nothing she’s learned explains it. The search of answers takes... Read more »
Learn more
The Shape of Dread
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 9 hours 4 minutes
Abridged: No
Bobby Foster, carhop 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 number one PI Sharon... Read more »
Learn more
Trophies and Dead Things
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 9 hours
Abridged: No
When a former sixties radical is murdered during a string of random sniper attacks, the All Souls Legal Cooperative must settle his surprisingly large estate. Then private investigator Sharon McCone comes across a new will, made just days before he died, that disinherits his two children in favor of four unknown and unconnected parties. McCone... Read more »
Learn more
Pennies on a Dead Woman’s Eyes
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Susan Boyce
Length: 10 hours 46 minutes
Abridged: No
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... Read more »
Learn more
The Ever-Running Man
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
Length: 8 hours 1 minute
Abridged: No
Sharon McCone is hired by her husband’s security firm to track down the “ever-running man”, who has been setting off explosive devices at their various offices. She doesn’t have to look for long. When McCone narrowly escapes an explosion in her apartment building, she catches a glimpse of his retreating figure. The ever-running man is... Read more »
Learn more
Burn Out
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 7 hours 30 minutes
Abridged: No
Traumatized by a recent life-or-death investigation, Sharon McCone flees to her ranch in California’s high desert country to contemplate her future. Deep depression shadows her days and nights, and a chance encounter with a troubled, highly secretive Native American woman begins to haunt her dreams. Even though she is determined not to... Read more »
Learn more
Locked In
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
Length: 7 hours 16 minutes
Abridged: No
Shot in the head by an unknown assailant, Sharon McCone finds herself trapped by Locked-In Syndrome: almost total paralysis but an alert, conscious mind. Since the late-night attack occurred at her agency’s offices, the natural conclusion was that it was connected to one of the firm’s cases.
As Sharon lies in her hospital bed, furiously trying to... Read more »
Learn more
Coming Back
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Deanna Hurst
Length: 8 hours 17 minutes
Abridged: No
In Locked In, San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone was shot in the head and suffered from locked-in syndrome: almost total paralysis but with an alert, conscious mind. Now, as Sharon struggles to regain control over her body, she realizes that it may not be possible to return to her old life. But when Sharon’s friend from physical therapy... Read more »
Learn more
City of Whispers
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 7 hours 16 minutes
Abridged: No
Private eye Sharon McCone receives an email asking for help from her emotionally disturbed half-brother, Darcy Blackhawk, but he fails to reply to her response. As Sharon digs deeper, she discovers that Darcy sent his message from an Internet cafe in San Francisco, a city he’s never been to before. Sensing that Darcy is in terrible danger,... Read more »
Learn more
Looking for Yesterday
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 7 hours 6 minutes
Abridged: No
Three years ago, Caro Warrick was acquitted for the murder of her best friend Amelia Bettecourt, but the lingering doubts of everyone around Caro is adversely affecting her life. Sharon McCone is confident that she can succeed where other detectives have failed (though at times it’s hard to shake her own misgivings about what happened), but when... Read more »
Learn more
Skeleton in the Closet
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 48 minutes
Abridged: No
Sharon McCone is excited-and relieved-to move her detective agency into the perfect new office space. Unfortunately, real estate woes aren't the only headache that the new building brings into Sharon's life. Possible nineteenth-century ghosts and a shady "intra-reality organization" ensure that Sharon's new office will bring as much excitement... Read more »
Learn more
The Night Searchers
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 6 hours 56 minutes
Abridged: No
When new clients Jay and Camilla Givens come to SharonMcCone with Camilla’s stories of devil worshippers performing human sacrificesin San Francisco, the detective is skeptical, to say the least. However, whenshe discovers that Jay is involved with the treasure hunting group the NightSearchers, she starts looking into what exactly he and the... Read more »
Learn more
Someone Always Knows
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Laura Hicks
Length: 7 hours 6 minutes
Abridged: No
Missing bearer bonds, a family tragedy, arson, andmurder—it’s all in a day’s work for Sharon McCone in the new series installmentfrom bestselling author Marcia Muller.
Settled into their new home after they lost theirhouse in a fire and fully established in their new shared offices, privateinvestigator Sharon McCone and her business partner... Read more »
Learn more
McCone and Friends
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Susan Boyce
Length: 7 hours 15 minutes
Abridged: No
Creator of the modern female private eye story, Marcia Muller has been writing novels and short stories about Sharon McCone since 1977. In the process, McCone has gained a host of associates and formed her own detective agency. Some seven years ago, Marcia Muller decided to show readers different views of her sleuth by relating cases through the... Read more »
Learn more
The McCone Files
By: Marcia Muller
Narrated by: Susan Boyce
Length: 10 hours 10 minutes
Abridged: No
Marcia Muller is, as Sue Grafton pointed out, the creator of the modern female private eye story, and Sharon McCone is one of the finest and most sensitive of all current sleuths. Sharon came upon the scene in 1977 with Edwin of the Iron Shoes, the first of fifteen novels and fifteen short stories filled with cluing and caring. The McCone Files... Read more »
Learn moreNotice to our customers about Games to Keep the Dark Away
Due to publisher restrictions we are unable to offer this audiobook via membership credits. To help combat restrictive licensing for our customers, we've lowered the price of this audiobook as much as we can.