Rituals of the Season [Mass Market Paperback]

Margaret Maron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2006

- "High Country Fall, Margaret Maron's most recent installment in the Deborah Knott series, was published in Mysterious Press hardcover in 8/04, with a first printing of 40,000 copies.- Margaret Maron swept the top mystery awards with her first Deborah Knott hardcover, "Bootlegger's Daughter (Mysterious Press, 1992), receiving the Edgar1 Award for Best Mystery Novel, the Agatha Award, the Macavity, and the Anthony. She also won a 1992 Agatha Award for the short story that introduced the character of Deborah Knott, and later, she received the Agatha Award for Best Novel for "Up Jumps the Devil (Mysterious Press, 1996). Maron was nominated for an Agatha Award for "Home Fires (Mysterious Press, 1998), and most recently, "Storm Track (Mysterious Press, 2000) won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. "Last Lessons of Summer (Mysterious Press, 2003), was also nominated for an Agatha Award.- "Last Lessons of Summer, Slow Dollar, and Uncommon Clay were all selected as Mystery Guild Main Selections.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. At the start of Maron's first-rate 11th Deborah Knott mystery (after 2004's High Country Fall), the judge and her fiancé, sheriff deputy Dwight Bryant, are distracted from their impending nuptials by a fatal car crash involving assistant D.A. Tracy Johnson. When it turns out that someone shot Johnson as she was driving, Deborah and Dwight become involved in a murder investigation that will uncover a web of crime and corruption in Colleton County, N.C. Meanwhile, members of Deborah's large, extended family, among other warm Southern characters, hurry to complete the renovations on Deborah's old farmhouse and to prepare, celebrate and sometimes complicate the upcoming wedding. When two young students approach Deborah about a death-row prisoner who they think is innocent, she can't resist helping. In contrast to the image of the ideal woman described in the quotes from the Victorian etiquette book that head each chapter, the realistic, contemporary Deborah, an expert at multitasking, handles all challenges with wit, intelligence and sensitivity.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Maron's Judge Deborah Knott series is one of those cozy-procedural combos whose fans relish being part of the daily lives of the characters. This eleventh installment in the series will be treasured by those devotees with the same fervor that soap fans feel for a pivotal episode. It's Christmas, which means plenty of -family-friendly celebrating among Judge Knott's enormous clan in Colleton County, North Carolina, but more than that, the long-awaited marriage between Deborah and Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant is about to happen. Amid the myriad domestic details, there is also murder: the shooting of an assistant DA leads back to an earlier murder trial and the possibility that a soon-to-be-executed woman may be innocent. Readers new to this series may find the domesticity a bit overwhelming--a full page on the question of whether the wedding rice bags should be filled with birdseed?--but Deborah's fans will want to hear it all. And give Maron credit: her ability to evoke the camaraderie shared by small-town friends and family is almost enticing enough to make Woody Allen consider moving to North Carolina. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446617652
• ISBN-13: 978-0446617659
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 0.9 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #863,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maron's 11th outing for Judge Deborah Knott!, October 10, 2005

By 

L. Quido "quidrock" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rituals of the Season (Deborah Knott Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Is entertaining and just the right mix of legal matters, mystery, and personal feelings and happenings for young judge Deborah, who, I marvel, is the 12th child of Kezzie Knott, born after his 11 sons. Kezzie, one of the more memorable characters (a backwoods moonshiner with a high intellect and a legendary family) makes a brief appearance at the end of the story, as Deborah finally ties the knot with deputy Dwight Bryant.

Maron skillfully mixes the wedding (with all the trimmings) while digging in to interlocking crimes. One is the sad murder of a local Assistant DA, one a long-ago murder by a woman who is now on death row. Both Dwight and Deborah get caught in the underpinnings, and effectively work together...going up a blind alley until the truth presents itself.

Maron's stories of North Carolina, where she's a native, draw you in and make you feel as though you are there. Her heroine is charming and wise, and the stories just keep getting better. It will be interesting to see where Maron takes the series now that Deborah has a new role in life.

A great read!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Family Story, July 31, 2006

By 

Lorene Robbins "Lorene Robbins Author of The ... (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rituals of the Season (Deborah Knott Mysteries) (Hardcover)

In Rituals of the Season, Margaret Maron focuses largely on family- Deborah Knott's huge, extended family and her new family with her upcoming wedding to Dwight Bryant. There is a mystery involving the shooting of an Assistant district Attorney, and another mystery involving the conviction of a local woman who was sentenced to Death Row for clubbing her stepson to death with a softball bat. However, these are peripheral to the hustle and bustle surrounding a Christmas wedding.

I did find myself getting lost in the numerous cast of characters many times-- Maron helpfully put a family tree type chart at the beginning of the book showing all of Deborah's brothers and their families but the chart did not account for all the cousins and aunts and uncles and friends and other attorneys and sheriff's department personnel-- I had to constantly flip pages back to figure out who anybody was.

Other than that, it's an enjoyable book-- although it's really not much of a mystery.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars another enjoyable addition to the series, August 22, 2005

By 

E Rice (western ny state) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rituals of the Season (Deborah Knott Mysteries) (Hardcover)

i sat down with this book the moment i opened the shipping box and did manage to go to bed without finishing it the same day.

i did not guess the murderer in the first three chapters, which is always a plus after decades of mystery reading. the plot was well laid out and the clues are there is you really want them. the dialogue was enjoyable, especially the bits of traditional speech which is, as in any part of the country, disappearing.

and, of course, the usual cast of friends and family made its appearance. as with most series, the development of the characters' lives is at least as much a draw as the mystery.

for fans of the series, this will be a particularly enjoyable episode. new readers will enjoy the mystery and be confused by the family, but that's all the more reason to read the rest of the the deborah knott books.