Up Jumps the Devil [Library Binding]

Margaret Maron (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

Murder usually begins at home, and Colleton County, North Carolina, proves no exception. When truck driver and childhood neighbor Dallas Stancil is shot and killed in his own backyard, Judge Deborah Knott figures she owes his memory at least the respectful ritual of taking his widow one of her Aunt Zell's best chicken casseroles. Mistake Number One. Dallas wasn't rich, but with development eating up the farms and forests of North Carolina his land is suddenly worth a fortune. His trashy, chain-smoking third wife and grown stepchildren are all too aware of its value. Opportunistsincluding one Deborah's own brothers - are coming out of the woodwork. And she knows big money makes people do bad things. Hardworking, redneck, and salt-of-the-earth, the Stancil men have lived side-by-side with Deborah's family. When the Stancils suffer another tragedy, a long-hidden skeleton rattles its bones and jumps out of what she thought was her long-dead past. She can run the culprit back out of town or maybe get him charged with murder, but ignoring him would be Mistake Number Two. All around the changing South, Deborah sees hunting dogs, rowdy funerals, backwoods moonshine stills, and long-bed pickups clashing with BMW-driving professionals and housing tracts. With one foot in the rural past and the other in today's high-tech present, she knows her personal world is changing too. This bootlegger's daughter sits on the judicial bench and sees both sides of the law. But she also feels the tug of her roots...and the pull of her heart.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Margaret Maron, author of Shooting at Loons and Southern Discomfort, continues her saga of change and transformation in fictional Colleton County, North Carolina, guided once again by District Court Judge Deborah Knott. Trouble comes to the county in Up Jumps the Devil with the arrival of the new interstate, which raises property values and pits neighbor against neighbor--even kin against kin. When two residents are killed after refusing to sell their land to real estate speculators, Judge Knott embarks on a quest to find the killer--or killers. The quest also forces her to take a hard look at her assumptions about her fellow townspeople and herself. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

With vivid detail and engaging, credible characters, Maron's series featuring North Carolina district court judge Deborah Knott (Edgar winner Bootlegger's Daughter, etc.) brings to life fictional Colleton County and chronicles a charming but rapidly changing South. Here, the background is the suburbanization of the rural countryside less than an hour by superhighway from Raleigh. A few days after Dallas Stancil refuses to sell his land to a speculator, his stepson and wife murder him. Then, Dallas's peripatetic cousin Allen, the devil from Deborah's past, comes to town. Several days later, Dallas's father, Jap, is killed just before he can divide the property between Merrilee Grimes, his late wife's niece, and Allen. So who killed Jap, and who gets the Stancil land?Dallas's widow? Allen? Merrilee and her husband, Pete? Billy Wall, Jap's partner in the produce business? Dick Sutterly, a real estate developer who has a signed deed to Jap's property? Suspicions extend to Deborah's own family when one of her 11 brothers, visiting from California, reveals that he's lost his job and plans to sell his acreage, which abuts Jap's. In the end, the answer derives from a combination of greed, fear and ignorance of the intricate laws of inheritance. Maron eloquently describes different behaviors toward the land, from stewardship to despoliation. The old-fashioned warmth of the extended Knott family and Maron's well-constructed plot make this series a standout. Mystery Guild selection.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: Bt Bound (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0613022114
• ISBN-13: 978-0613022118
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,246,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARGARET MARON is the author of twenty-seven novels and two collections of short stories. Winner of several major American awards for mysteries (Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity), her works are on the reading lists of various courses in contemporary Southern literature and have been translated into 15 languages. She has served as president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America. Visit her at www.MargaretMaron.com.

A native Tar Heel, she still lives on her family's century farm a few miles southeast of Raleigh, the setting for Bootlegger's Daughter, which is numbered among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. In 2004, she received the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for best North Carolina novel of the year; and in 2008, the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state's highest civilian honor. Her mystery novels feature District Court Judge Deborah Knott and are the pegs upon which she hangs her love and concern for the state.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Agatha winner - entertaining tales but not much mystery, July 15, 2001

By 

Carol Peterson Hennekens (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Up Jumps the Devil (Deborah Knott Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

The key to enjoying this, the fourth book in the Deborah Knott series, is come in with the right expectations. It won an Agatha so you're exepecting lots of sluething. Think again. The mystery component is, at best, about one-fourth of the book. And then, just to be really annoying, Maron never really tells you why or how the killer killed. Normally this would totally sour me on the book but I enjoyed the other three-fourths of the book enough to forgive her.

What this book (and series) is really about is life in contemporary rural North Carolina as seen through the eyes of Deborah Knott. Deborah (don't even think of calling her Deb or Debbie) is the youngest of twelve children (you need a scorecard to keep the brothers straight) and is a district court judge. Between family and litigants, the book is filled with tales of small town life - paternity suit shananigans, stock car racing history, feuds over old family burial plots, and church goers who will gamble on any day but Sunday. Hunters wives (like me) will laugh out loud over the "buck fever" story towards the end of the book.

This particular book dwells on the effect of growth on the community. Land prices are skyrocketing and tract homes are replacing fields. When an elderly landowner (and former stock car builder) is killed without direct descendents, the possible heirs are all looking to grab his land and make a killing. But did they kill to make a killing? One of the possible heirs is Deborah's ex-husband from a annulled marriage - just to make things interesting.

Bottom-line: A good book for people who want to read a book in a southern setting that finds the middle ground between the angst of literary fiction and the buffoons of Jeff Foxworthy. Folks who need non-stop mystery action may want to look elsewhere.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Still having fun with this series., December 11, 2001

By 

"bibliofiend" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Up Jumps the Devil (Deborah Knott Mysteries) (Hardcover)

In this fourth book of this series, we finally find out how many brothers Deborah has (11). Her large family of older brothers has been mentioned in previous books, but until now we were never told exactly how many. As for the mystery plot in this book, it is tenuous at best. If you are not paying close attention, you could be left with a lot of questions regarding motive. The main story with this book is that a developer is looking to get his hands on the property that Deborah, her father, and her brothers own (collectively approximately 2500 acres) as well as the surrounding properties owned by neighbors. One of Deborah's brothers (who lives in California) has lost his job and is condering selling his small parcel (3 acres) to the developer. The major difference with this book is that is doesn't have the 'light' humor that Maron has put into her previous books. Still, the author is maintaining a steady pace with the series.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine addition to a good series, April 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Up Jumps the Devil (Deborah Knott Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a good book. Woth reading if you like mysteries and/or a writer who knows how to put together believable characters and wonderful sense of location.