Up Jumps the Devil [Hardcover]

Margaret Maron (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: New York: Warner Books, 1994 (1994)
• ASIN: B000LVJCBG
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,081,896 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.