Grunge was just coming in when I discovered Sharon McCone in 1990, so it's a bit odd to think of Ted being into grunge when Sharon met him. Marcia Mueller's detective was 28 at her 1977 creation, 20 years older than I was. Now, her age is unstated but I estimate she's just shy of 60. Mueller's retcon skills exceed those of Sara Paretsky, though. She mentions old friends and alludes to early experiences, but since her world has changed regularly, both personally and professionally, the fuzzy timeline causes fewer problems than with Chicago's solo PI.
Sharon has also become more apolitically active, in part due to her discovery of her Native American heritage. Ice and Stone has Sharon investigating the murders of two Native women, tow of thousands who have disappeared or been murdered in the last several years. Here, the main suspects are the local landowners, a man and his two sons, or perhaps the two goons they employ. ice and Stone is tightly plotted and q quick read (only 256 pages, with several pages just giving the date), with an unexpected motive for the murders. There's also slight pharmaceutical plot error (-zone is the nomenclature for antipsychotics, but she needed to explain how rare earth elements would factor in), but it's obscure enough and not quite vital to the plot (i.e. not five minutes of searching like the patent/trade secret confusion made me give up Jill Churchill) that I'll let it go
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