About six months ago, I read "S is for Silence" by Sue Grafton. It had a female private investigator who was working for a woman client. The client's mother had mysteriously vanished when the woman was a child and she wanted the detective, Kinsey Milhone, to see if she could find out what had ever happened to her. The novel was set in California.
Last night I was in the bookstore and picked up "Vanishing Point" a brand-new mystery novel by Marcia Muller. Guess what it's about? A female private investigator who is working for a woman client. The client's mother mysterious vanished when the woman was a child and she wants the detective, Sharon McCone, to see if she can find out what ever happened to her. The novel is set in California.
Umm. . . .aren't these two novels basically the exact same story???
Couldn't Muller -- whose book was published second -- change at least *one* detail of her book so that they weren't so very similar? Such as maybe having the client be a man or the missing parent be a father (which is more realistic, anyway, as men "disappear" from their children's lives much more frequently than mothers do) or the setting being one of the other 49 states?