Last Lessons of Summer [Hardcover]

Margaret Maron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003 | Series: Maron, Margaret

Heir to her family's successful children's book and merchandising business, Amy Stedman arrives in NorthCarolina with the task of clearing out the house of her deceased grandmother-whose murder remains unsolved. While sorting through her grandmother's things, Amy begins to reflect on her own marriage to a man who seems more in love with her legacy than with her. Similarly, Amy's mother's mar-riage to her father-brash young businessman and opportunist Jeff Voygt-was filled with doubt and deceit. Furthermore, soon after Amy was born, her mother, Maxine, killed herself. Or did she? Now, in her grandmother's house, the memories of the deaths of these two women play menacingly with Amy's mind. Was her mother's death really a suicide? And if not, can Amy escape her family's killer?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; 1ST edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892967803
• ISBN-13: 978-0892967803
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,954,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I can't bring myself to finish it., April 19, 2005

By 

John Speer (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Lessons of Summer (Hardcover)

I'm on Tape 2 of the unabridged audio version, and find myself unable to continue. It was very difficult to keep the characters straight when they were all introduced at the business meeting (no family tree on tape!). However, I kinda managed to get past that. My problem is the mystery angle; I just don't care who offed the old lady! These are stock characters to me, with a bit of melodrama thrown in.

I can fully understand the author's wanting to branch out beyond Judge Knott (whose books I really like). This effort seemed a slightly wishy-washy way of doing so in having a similar enough protagonist and being set in the same area as the Knott series.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Stand Alone by Margaret Maron, December 21, 2003

By 

Scarletaka "Stacey" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Lessons of Summer (Hardcover)

Margaret Maron has created another great mystery that is NOT based on her wonderful Deborah Knott series.

Amy Steadman is the heir to a toy/childrens book empire left to her by her Grandmother(Francis Barbour.) Amy is an artist and wants nothing to do with the business side of the company. However, since Amy's mother Maxi committed suicide when Amy was only 3 Francis was determined that Amy's father could run the company but the ownership would remain Amy's.

The company business has been run for over 30 years by Amy's father. Now, he is talking of retirement and the step-brothers and half-sister that she's grown up with are showing some resentment for the years of knowing that she was the Heir to the vast empire they all had grown up with.

Amy's recent marriage is having problems and it's only adding to the pressure she's under. Amy doesn't like confrontation so after her Grandmother's murder she's offered a large sum of money to sell the southern home her Grandmother inhabited in the later years of her life with her Grandfather in North Carolina.

Amy decides that she wants some answers not only to the death of Francis but of the secrets behind the suicide of her mother years before. It's the perfect excuse for her to escape her problems and hopefully get some of the answers that everyone has made a point of making her forget over these years. Afraid of sending movers to go through boxes of personal items she heads off to clear the house out herself.

She arrives to a family full of secrets and a murderer still out there and now threatening Amy.

Her half-sister Beth runs away from her own problems with the family and shows up on her doorstep with tales of woe of her own. For two sisters who have never been close it's a learning experience and search for a killer.

Around every corner you'll be wondering who could it be and does it tie to her mother's suicide? Just when you think you've figured it out you're wrong. The emotions of Amy, a woman who has wondered for so much of her life how her mother could have killed herself and how her family erased her mother from her memory Leaving Amy with no answers is emotional.

I felt for her and was along for the ride wanting them to tell her what they knew and why no one spoke of Maxi.

This story is wonderfully written. It made me love some of the characters and hate others. I couldn't wait for the next page. I wanted to know what happened but I didn't cheat. It's that kind of book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you like the Deborah Knott Series, Read this!, August 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Last Lessons of Summer (Hardcover)

I am a huge fan of Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series, and I totally enjoyed this book. Some of the Knott series characters make appearances in this book as well, but the main characters are all new. I read this book while on vacation, and was disappointed I didn't save more of it to read on the airplane ride home...so I reread the last 4 chapters! Is this the best Margaret Maron book that I've read? Well, no. But it was fun, and like her other books set in North Carolina, you feel immersed in the sweet Southern charm of the "Old North State!"