29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The series is the one your reading year is built around, November 2, 2010
This review is from: Christmas Mourning (Hardcover)
It has been a year of non-stop change for Judge Deborah Knott and her husband the Colleton County Sherriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant. They are about to celebrate their first anniversary and finally have Dwight's son Cal settled into living with them after the tragedy of losing his mother. But this homey scene is rocked when Mallory, a popular teenager dies in a tragic car accident. Leaving too many questions and no answers in what should be an open and shut case.
Questions start popping up when Mallory's last voice mail to her brother plays out the final moments of her life in too real detail. The suspicion that she might have been drinking escalates into fact which causes escalation that she had been drugged since Mallory may have flirted with the boys she was not a girl known to walk against the grain and never drank alcohol. So Dwight starts digging deeper into the situation and without a day gone by two more bodies turn up and this time their cause of death is obvious - gun shots straight on. These brothers were always on the wrong side of the law but what could have caused them to have been so brutally murdered? Is this case related to the traffic accident? What is it that Mallory's family is not telling him that might be at the core of the problem? Too many questions and no one is saying a word, this definitely is not the way to kick off the holiday season that is for sure.
Dwight is tenacious, Deborah is a snoop and family is determined to find out what happened and hopefully resolving these crimes will not lead to anymore but it is not looking good. But what is going on at the house is another head scratcher? All of Deborah's nieces and nephews keep showing up at odd times, with strange explanations and even wilder more unbelievable tales to explain their presence at the house. Hopefully nothing catches on fire this year!
This series always brings to the reader a mystery, family drama and shenanigans plus some wonderful romance between Dwight and Deborah. Another year has produced another winner in this series and as always with Ms. Maron's work you have to get to the end of the book to know who done it! Margaret Maron leaves lots of clues but always throws in a curve to make sure you are paying attention. Thank you again for writing such a great series that everyone will enjoy.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Quick Forgettable Read, December 16, 2010
This review is from: Christmas Mourning (Hardcover)
I read several Margaret Maron books years ago and decided to pick this one up for a Christmas read. I remember liking her books quite well, but this one was only so-so. I quickly became annoyed with the neices and nephews, and, since it had been a while since I had visited the Knott family, I had trouble keeping straight which kid belonged to which brother. Also, the teenagers were just a little too cute and a little too flat for my taste. Maybe if there were fewer of them they could be better developed. With that being said, it was fine for a snowy Sunday afternoon. I
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ho ho (ho hum?) a cosy Christmas tale, November 13, 2010
This review is from: Christmas Mourning (Hardcover)
Although the cosy is almost my least-favorite form of mystery (just above detective-as-drunk noir and those themed things with pasta or knitting in all the titles), I always buy Margaret Maron's Colleton County books. When Deborah Knott leaves her home turf, I find the tales too thin, but when Maron keeps the judge at home, it's a feast of food, family, music, farm life, and her insights about the shocking changes in the culture and landscape of my native South.
This is a good entry in the series -- or a good entry point if you've read none of them. Deborah's family is tied to the land of eastern NC, literally and emotionally. As traditional farming gets amplified by organic and specialty crops, the latest generation of her family maintains that bond. Deborah Knott's love of the land is presented to us through dozens of casually recounted memories and family stories, as is her romance with her old friend/new husband. No, there's not much action, but Maron's ear is exquisite and the dialogue is a real treat for Southerners in exile.
The plot here touches on the problem of high school kids and their cell phone culture -- texting while driving now seems to be almost as lethal is drinking and driving. As usual, the actions of the characters in the criminal plot are shadowed by members of Deborah's enormous family, and we get a sense of how confused teens are by all the choices they have.
There's no blood, no politics, no attempts To Achieve World Peace, no gimmicks, but in this genre, that's fine. Maron's series still offers that gentle pleasure: a quiet afternoon reading on the porch.
That said, this is the first Maron I've read since discovering Louise Penny. Penny's Three Pines series elevates the cosy to a sublime level, adding both beauty -- the poetry, the perfectly crafted book-length metaphors -- and gravitas. There's an Aristotelian Choice confronting nearly every main character at one point or another. Moral virtue and intellectual virtue work toward an end that includes the reader in a worthy work. Maron's book is delightful, but if you want breath-taking, try Louise Penny.
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