Customer Reviews

Rituals of the Season

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

Judge Deborah Knott is in the middle of plans for her wedding to Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant a little more than a week away. When the Assistant DA is killed from a gunshot while driving her car, secrets about the woman are uncovered, questions about the guilt of a woman on death row about to be executed are raised and the possible involvement of a fellow officer are suspect.

Maron does a wonderful job conveying the atmosphere and relationships of a small Southern town. I particularly love the dialogue with the local vernacular. She also handled the possible ethical problems of the relationship of a judge and a police officer well. Although I understand the reason for it, I didn't care for the switch between the first- and third-person points of view. At times, I did feel the mystery is almost lost in the wedding plans and the family. It's not, in my view, her best book, but it is still an interesting read and enjoyable addition to the series.

Maron has turned out to be a truly gifted storyteller. On the one hand, each novel has become like a visit with a group of old friends, and it's hard to say good-by at the end. I love reading about Deborah's interactions with her eleven brothers and I loved the all-too-brief glimpse of Deborah's wedding.

And I love the glimpses of Kezzie Knott, Deborah's rough-hewn, handsome bootlegger father. And the juxtaposition of Deborah's family with her professional identity. Questioned about marrying a man who didn't graduate from college, Deborah laughs: her dad was a bootlegger and most of her brothers are farmers and blue collar workers.

But Maron serves up a well-crafted mystery, parallel to the festivities of Deborah's wedding. Tracy, a thirty-something district attorney, has been murdered and a deputy -- the woman's boyfriend -- soon gets identified. At the same time, two young law students investigate a woman on death row, accused of murdering her husband. Tracy had taken an interest in the case: was there a connection?

Maron maintains suspense while gently weaving among these plot strands: Deborah's wedding (and pre-wedding relationship), the woman on death row and the murder of Tracy Johnson. It's deceptively simple. When I revisited the book to write this review, I realized how cleverly Maron had moved the plot along.

Maron takes her novels in new directions here, with a gritty heart-stopping opening and a shift away from Deborah's first-person perspective in several scenes. It works.

My only complaint: At least one more year before we get the next installment. I'm sure Maron's tired of writing about Knott, but this series is head and shoulders above her others. Hope she's started the next one already!

Margaret has done it again-I own all of her books and have throughly enjoyed each and everyone. Rituals of the Season offers great mystery and such comfort in visiting with the Knott family again. She certainly makes them "come alive" and each book makes you feel more and more like you are a member of their community and a friend. I recommend it highly.

September 20, 2005

It's December 10, Christmas is just around the corner and ADA Tracy Johnson, and her three-year-old adopted daughter Mei travel along a North Carolina Interstate, homebound, when Tracy is shot in the head. Her vehicle runs off the road, and overturns into an overpass. Adding to the tragedy a heavy Christmas gift strikes and kills Mei in the backseat.

Judge Deborah Knott is preparing to marry Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant in two weeks Deborah knew Tracy as a one-time opponent. Tracy a prosecutor and Deborah a defense attorney. The murder casts a shadow over the upcoming festivities.

Tracy at the time was investigating the murder of Roy Hurst. Roy's stepmother, Martha Hurst, is on death row, sentenced to die within a month. Martha claims innocence, while two young adults try to scrape up evidence to set her free.

For Deborah and Dwight, embroiling in a homicide investigation is an unwelcome diversion, although the need in finding the killer and bringing justice takes center stage as they toil to reveal the motives behind the murder and solve the mystery.

A genealogy chart is included at the beginning of the book, so if you haven't read any of the preceding novels like me, you won't be lost or confused as there are so many characters and can be a bit overwhelming.

Just when you think you've figured out whodunit, readers will be pleased of a quick twist near the end of the book. Rituals of the Season contains an often times bizarre cast of characters and enough southern charm sure to please mystery fans everywhere!

Reviewed by Betsie

A dozen or so years ago, a friend said to me: "Have you ever read any of Margaret Maron's Judge Deborah Knott books?" I picked up "Bootlegger's Daughter," and I was hooked. At the risk of sounding loony, Deborah and her family and friends have become so real to me and I look forward to every book. Reading "Rituals" was one of the highlights of my summer. Thanks, Ms. Maron, for creating Judge Deborah's world, for making her so tart-tongued and funny, loyal and family loving, hypocrite despising and compassionate to the underdog -- for putting the preacher and the pragmatist in her head, and for making her a judge who isn't afraid to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. And thanks for giving her a mate like Dwight. I can't wait to see where their story goes next.

Margaret Maron writes the greatest book of southern fiction of all time. They are written smoothly and read as easily. I love her stories. Deborah and Dwight are the sweetest couple.

Things are hectic for Judge Deborah Knott and her fiance Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. Not only is Christmas approaching but also their wedding day. Their hopes of easing off from work are dashed when the assistant District Attorney and her baby are shot while driving to a doctor's appointment. Deborah and Dwight both have a stake in solving the murder and they have to learn where one's juridiction begins and the other ends. They also have a lot of pre-wedding events to attend with Deborah's large extended family and friends whom they have known all of their lives. After several false leads, Dwight finally learns who the killer is and Deborah works to keep a falsely-accused woman from being executed. It's all in a day's work and is cleared up just in time for Deborah and Dwight's wedding. This is a series that continues to build reader loyalty through its well-written plots and characters who begin to feel like family.