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Summary
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
Although it has been five years since readers last met NYPD homicide detective Lt. Sigrid Harald (in Past Imperfect), only two fictional months have elapsed since Sigrid's lover, painter Oscar Nauman, died and left his entire estate, worth millions, to her as both legatee and executor. Still grieving, Sigrid returns to work and to the Manhattan art scene to authorize a Nauman retrospectiveand it's tough to say which venue is less civilized. While Sigrid's detectives cope with a mother who insists her ne'er-do-well son's suicide was really murder, Sigrid herself gets a look at the dirt trapped under high culture's polished veneer. Soon after a painter angrily causes a ruckus at an opening staged by a prominent art dealer, Sigrid discovers the dealer's bludgeoned corpse in Oscar'snow herstudio apartment. Although Sigrid assigns one of her men to take charge of the case, it is her own sensitivity to enmities and old grudges in the art world that finally reveals the entire picture, although not before another life is lost. Maron adeptly establishes a coolly thematic and deceptive link among the deaths as she constructs her affecting mystery out of distinctive blend of art-world politics, past crimes and present grief. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
It's been five years since the last appearance of Lt. Sigrid Harald, NYPD Homicide (Past Imperfect, etc.), and although they've been good years for her creator--whose second series featuring Judge Deborah Knott (Shooting at Loons, 1994, etc.) has received the kind of acclaim the older series never did--they haven't been kind to Sigrid. Left grieving and potentially wealthy by the accidental death of her lover, painter Oscar Nauman, Sigrid has taken a leave from the force while the vultures circle around the collection Nauman left her, waiting with ill-disguised impatience for her to start selling it off. Shortly after a brace of gallery owners--chatty Hal DiPietro, war-hero scion Victor Germondi, businesslike Hester Kohn, and dazzled newcomer Arnold Callahan--decide to collaborate on a big- scale show of every Nauman canvas they can rustle up, DiPietro climaxes an inexplicable run of bad luck at his gallery by getting himself killed in Nauman's Manhattan apartment. Sigrid, back on the job but still pretty numb, hands off the case to her squad; and they're also the ones who'll solve the unrelated shooting of an abusive husband the day after somebody tried to kill his third wife with the same gun. Conscientious but synthetic, and no threat to Deborah Knott's popularity. While Sigrid's been away, she's lost her place on the first team.
Booklist Review
Although Maron is best known for her lively mysteries featuring North Carolina judge Deborah Knott, she's also the author of eight novels featuring cool, self-contained NYPD Lieutenant Sigrid Harald. Here an emotional Sigrid is caught in the middle of personal tragedy when her lover, artist Oscar Nauman, is killed in an automobile accident. After narrowly escaping death herself in a shoot-out, Sigrid is understandably devastated to learn that Oscar is dead. The fact that he's left her his paintings, making her a very wealthy woman, is no consolation. Sigrid soon finds herself caught up in the New York art scene--much against her will--as gallery owners and friends of Oscar's decide to stage a memorial retrospective. When one of the gallery owners is found dead in Oscar's apartment, Sigrid must stop being the grieving lover and once again become the calculating cop. As always, Maron offers readers an intriguing, entertaining story, albeit one that's very different in tone and style from her Deborah Knott books. A fine choice and one that's sure to prove popular with Maron fans new and old. --Emily Melton
Library Journal Review
Maron reawakens a too-long dormant series with the return of Lt. Sigrid Harald of the NYPD. The deaths of a fellow officer and of her artist lover throw Sigrid into declineuntil her lover's legacy of valuable paintings leads to the murder of a greedy art dealer. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
