Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... Oakdale Library | MYSTERY MAR | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | MYSTERY MAR | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
* Slow Dollar, Margaret Maron's previous hardcover for Mysterious Press, wasreleased in 8/02. The Warner mass market edition will be released in 8/03.
* In 1993, Margaret Maron swept the top mystery awards with her first Deborah Knott novel, Bootlegger's Daughter (Mysterious Press, 1992), winning the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel of 1992, the Agatha Award, the Macavity, and the Anthony. Most recently, she won the Agatha for Storm Track (Mysterious Press, 2000).
* Margaret Maron grew up near Raleigh, North Carolina, but for many years lived in Brooklyn, New York; Naples, Italy; and Washington, D.C. When she eventually returned to her North Carolina roots, she began thinking about a series based on her background and created the award-winning Deborah Knott series.
Author Notes
Margaret Maron grew up in rural North Carolina. She attended college for two years before a summer job at the Pentagon led to marriage, a tour of duty in Italy, than several years in Brooklyn, New York before moving back to North Carolina. She is the author of the Sigrid Harald Mystery series, the Deborah Knott Mystery series, Bloody Kin, and Last Lessons of Summer. Bootlegger's Daughter won the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards for Best Mystery in 1992. "Up Jumps the Devil" won the 1996 "Best Novel" Agatha award. "High Country Fall" was nominated for an Agatha Award in 2004 and also picked up a Macavity nomination the following year. "Three-Day Town" won the 2011 Agatha Award for "Best Novel". "Long Upon the Land" won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel of 2015.Margaret is a founding member and past president of sisters in Crime and of the American Crime Writer's League; She is a director on the national board for Mystery Writers of America.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Known best for her Deborah Knott novels (Slow Dollar, etc.) and her Sigrid Harald series (Fugitive Colors, etc.), Edgar-winner Maron has produced a standalone gem, set in North Carolina's Piedmont country, that focuses on a large matriarchal family. Amy Steadman, a toy company executive in New York City, returns to her Southern roots one steamy August after inheriting a fortune from her murdered maternal grandmother, Frances Barbour. Aided by Beth, her pouty younger half-sister, Amy sorts through furniture, books and other personal items in Grandma Frances's summer house, where Amy's mother, Maxie, committed suicide when Amy was three. Amy is determined to find out what was really behind her mother's death-and her grandmother's, too. Amy's many kinfolk, who pass in and out of the house, seem as kind and gentle as can be, but one of them is decidedly dangerous. Cousin Curt is poisoned with jimson weed seeds cooked into a jar of preserves, and another tainted jar turns up in Amy's refrigerator. Maron has a faultless ear for Southern speech, dotting her dialogue with regionalisms like "I might could have." A feast of clues and red herrings, the book builds to a climax that hits like a hot bullet blast. With oodles of characters to keep straight, readers will find the family tree at the start an essential guide. (Aug. 26) FYI: Maron is a past president of Sisters in Crime and a former board member of the Mystery Writers of America. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
This is a stand-alone mystery from the author of the popular Judge Deborah Knott series. Fans of the Knott series will want to read Maron's latest, but this desultory sleuthing excursion might leave them disappointed. A New York City heiress to a toy company returns to North Carolina after her grandmother's death and, in the course of clearing the house, finds herself investigating her grandmother's murder and the suspicious death, years before, of her own mother. The writing, unfortunately, suggests an insipid teen romance. The heroine, in crisis, urges herself on with sayings from a beloved book about two stuffed animals: "What do you think, Pink? What'll we do, Blue?" Plot twists are delivered awkwardly, sometimes in artificial dialogue, as in, "Yet, three years later, she shot herself. Why, Dad?" The heroine doesn't so much solve the mystery as stand around while people decide to divulge secrets. Maron is a popular mystery author, and most library collections will need her complete works, but this one is sadly deficient. --Connie Fletcher
Kirkus Review
Temporarily benching Judge Deborah Knott, the southland's premier mystery writer (Slow Dollar, 2002, etc.) introduces an appealing new heroine who won't cost her a single reader. When Frances Barbour, the family matriarch, dies suddenly on her North Carolina farm, sweet-natured, soft-spoken, confrontation-hating Amy Stedman inherits a flourishing publishing/merchandising business--a big deal, though she feels cheated of answers to questions she'd always hoped her grandmother might provide about her mother. To help put her grandmother's estate in order, Amy leaves New York for North Carolina and the house in which she spent so many summers, the place where her mother was born and died 27 years ago, a suicide who left Amy only three. Once installed in the house, Amy finds almost nothing is as it was reported to be. Her grandmother's sudden death, for instance, was not the accidental aftermath of a random breaking and entering, but was planned and executed by someone who knew her. Her mother was not the self-loathing neurotic of family legend, but a victim not of her own making. To break down the wall of secrets and lies, Amy, finding an unexpected taste for battle, will have to confront an erring father, a condescending husband, and a vicious murderer. Well-plotted and suspenseful, with Maron's usual bonus: the ease with which she makes you love her scrappy heroines. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The good news is that Maron once again includes a family tree, so readers can keep track of who's who. The bad news is that this nonseries mystery lacks the vitality and finesse of Maron's award-winning Deborah Knot series. After 30-year-old Amy Steadman's grandmother Frances Barbour is murdered, presumably during a burglary in her North Carolina home, Amy becomes the primary heir of her estate, including the family business, which was built on a series of children's books written by Frances and her husband, Bailey. As Amy cleans out her grandmother's house, which is located on land valuable for its proximity to a new highway interchange, she tries-apparently for the first time-to learn more about her mother, Maxie, who committed suicide when Amy was three years old. Meanwhile she's worrying about her marriage, dealing with her immature half-sister, and receiving anonymous telephone threats. With a plot sometimes advanced awkwardly through dialog and prose sometimes bordering on trite, this disappointing book is only for devoted fans. Buy only where there is demand for Maron's works. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/03.]-Michele Leber, formerly with Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.