Customer Reviews

One Coffee With

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I respectfully disagree with the reviewer who wrote "Her understanding of how academic titles, promotions and tenure work is embarrassingly wrong . . ." Ms. Maron is quite well known for her unrelenting research in her books and considering the fact that her husband was a university professor for many years I venture to say she was right on the money in this book as she is in her others. Also, as one who has also worked in a university setting for 20 years I would have to say that she is absolutely right on target. I loved this book and hope for at least one more Sigrid novel in the future.

I've read 5 of Margaret Maron's books so far, and this rates up there with The Bootlegger's Daughter

This is the first book in Maron's Sigrid Harald series and her inexperience shows. The book gets off to a slow start and the solution is unconvincing.

However, the characters are vivid and that makes up for a lot. And, as with any series, the first book gives the background for the rest of the books, and it is a good series.

"One Coffee With" began on a blue-sky sunny April day. Spring gave way to summer, then autumn in New York, followed by Christmas and one of the worst Februarys in the city's memory (in Sigrid's memory, too, unfortunately)

For the author, fourteen years have passed. For Sigrid Harald herself, no matter how much internal evidence alert readers may cite to the contrary, it has been only one short tumultuous year.

And now it is spring again. . . "

As mentioned, this jewel of a character study spans the course of eight full length novels plus two short stories, one, "Lieutenant Harald And the `Treasure Island' Treasure" was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and the other, "Lieutenant Harald And The Impossible Gun" first appeared in Marilyn Wallace's fourth anthology. Both can be found in Margaret Maron's short story anthology "Shoveling Smoke".

As other reviewers have noted, these stories must be read in the correct order to fully understand the amazing transformation Sigrid goes through in the span of a short year, both internally and externally. And yet, all of the books can stand alone as well-plotted mysteries. This is the mark of Maron's true genius.

"One Coffee With" (1982) - first book that introduces us to Sigrid Harald, a highly intelligent but emotionally barren woman. Set in April, academic rivalry, petty jealousy, greed, and revenge form the backdrop for Maron's detective story featuring NYPD cop Sigrid Harald. Riley Quinn, deputy chairman of the art department at New York's Vanderlyn College, dies a grotesquely painful death when he drinks coffee laced with potassium dichromate, and it's up to Sigrid to find out whodunit. There are plenty of suspects, among them a disgruntled student, a female colleague whose promotion he blocked, another colleague with whom Quinn's wife was having a blatant affair, and a Hungarian handyman whose uncle left all his paintings to Quinn - paintings that are now worth a fortune. The plot is solid and complex, featuring the murder an unsympathetic character.

A pleasant short cozy read. Her understanding of how academic titles, promotions and tenure work is embarrassingly wrong, and you'll just have to grit your teeth and imagine she's writing about a university in another country to make the plot work. Didn't she or her editor talk to a single academic to check this stuff out?