Leave a Message for Willie by Marcia Muller

I've just been considering whether or not this book follows the pattern that I think I have discovered. I think it does. The murderer(s) appear early and innocuously. This time we have flea markets, stolen Torahs, and survivalists, which add up to a rather odd mixture. I don't recall a trigger event or phrase, but there was the session of almost free association which results in the full solution. The title comes from a near fatal game of phone tag. Hard to believe that the cell phone was not the essential appendage that it appears to be today.

New boyfriend, Don, is moving to San Francisco and that is much too close for Sharon's comfort. So the eventual demise of the relationship is already in place. Seems like the boyfriend that hangs around the longest is also in the PI racket - and tends to disappear for long periods of time. I'm not certain of that, of course, but that's what I think I remember. Then too, there are the ten years of books that I haven't read ---