Winter's Child (Hardcover)

by Margaret Maron (Author)
Key Phrases: gardenia perfume, blue parka, Major Bryant, Betty Ramos, Mayleen Richards (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Whoever shot J.D. Rouse dead in his pickup truck gives "taking out the trash" a whole new meaning at the start of Maron's outstanding 12th Deborah Knott mystery. Judge Deborah Knott and her new husband, Colleton County, N.C., chief deputy Dwight Bryant, are soon embroiled in the murder investigation. Then Dwight's eight-year-old son, Cal, who lives with his mother, Jonna, in Shaysville, Va., phones late one winter night to report that Jonna hasn't come home. Early the next morning, Dwight drives to Virginia, where Jonna reappears but later both she and Cal disappear. Meanwhile, in Colleton County, the hunt for J.D.'s killer leads to further fatalities. As the body count and suspense mount, the unflappable Deborah joins Dwight in the hunt for his missing son. And just when you think matters couldn't get worse, they most certainly do. Maron brilliantly connects the unconnected, hides one killer in plain sight and tucks another into a most unexpected position. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The twelfth entry in Maron's Deborah Knott series finds the family-oriented judge blissfully content in her brand-new marriage to her childhood friend turned marital partner Dwight Bryant, deputy sheriff of Colleton County. Part of an extended family so large it requires a map of the family tree to help readers keep track of the various relatives, Deborah is jolted from her routine when, first, Dwight's ex-wife and, then, his eight-year-old son, Cal, go missing. Meanwhile, Dwight's colleagues are busy tracking leads in the case of a local roustabout who has been killed by a shot to the head while sipping a beer in his pickup truck. As always, familial concerns take pride of place over the mystery as Deborah tries to stanch her jealousy upon perusing old wedding photos of Dwight's beautiful if shallow ex-wife; she also worries about establishing a solid relationship with Cal--when and if they can find him. In Maron's charming, folksy, small-town world, even the mayhem is domestic in nature, in this case prompted by stolen antiques and highway litter. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press; 1ST edition (August 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892968109
• ISBN-13: 978-0892968107
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #480,739 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 12 in The Deborah Knott Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hibernating in the Series, September 18, 2006

By	Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Dwight Bryant, experienced sheriff and newbie husband, becomes alarmed when he realizes his son Cal was left alone. However, ex-wife Jonna has been a responsible parent up to now, and her absence seems due to foul play. Naturally, Dwight drops everything to investigate, while his staff keeps the home fires burning as they investigate the mysterious shooting of a man found dead in his truck.

This volume seems to be what I call a positioning novel in a larger series. Dana Stabenow and Lawrence Block made major shifts with gruesome novels that killed off characters who (I suspect) had gotten in the way. Maron, thankfully, offers a gentler version as she gives Dwight Bryant a larger place on the stage.

But readers who follow the series may want to keep Deborah Knott front and center. Deborah remains the most complex and interesting character in the series and indeed one of the most fascinating characters in the world of mystery fiction -- along with Holly Winter, Sharon McCone and Anna Pigeon. She's got city smarts and country sense. She attracts equally complex girlfriends and who wouldn't love her extended family?

An astute politician, she's more down-home and politically incorrect than other female series characters, with a Baptist affiliation and an open-minded approach to death penalty cases. Few of us agree 100% with our friends on every issue and that's what makes Deborah seem like someone I'd like to meet for coffee (or something stronger, as she would say).

Like most of Maron's novels, Winter's Child can be judged more by character and ambience than plot. The plot isn't bad. One murder just isn't that interesting or mysterious; the other was quite cleverly set up by the book's structure. We don't get to revisit characters and settings from previous volumes in the series and I for one miss scenes when Deborah's on the bench.

The resolution of the novel (predictable to veterans of mystery series) brings together characters who can create some interesting chemistry in future volumes. Maron's female characters can be expected to remain more interesting and 3-dimensional than the men. As for Dwight Bryant, I'm curious to see how Maron deals with his female deputy's unrequited (and so far unspoken) crush, which adds a nice piece of tension to scenes in the sheriff's office, where Deborah is forbidden to enter.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars come on in, ya'll, and set a spell, November 25, 2006

By	Julia M. Walker (NY Finger Lakes) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

All of the Judge Deborah Knott books are wonderful, so if this one is a bit less wonderful than average, small harm. Beginning a month after the action in Rituals of the Season (in which Deborah and the uneuphoniously named Dwight Bryant are wed), this novel is set mostly in Virginia, home of Dwight's son and ex-wife, Jonna. We can understand Maron's need to find additional settings for the series, lest Cotton Grove and environs become the Cabot Cove of the South, but I miss the NC atmosphere and ambience. In Shaysville, VA, however, Maron has created another Southern microcosm about which she can be lovingly caustic.

As with all of the novels in this series, the dialogue is word-perfect across class and gender lines. Listening to these people talk is a pure pleasure. The characters are vivid, never toppling over the bounds of credulity; we can enjoy despising the self-absorbed Southern lady and the obsessed collector of Civil War-era tat.

No, there's not much of a plot, but the shock value of Cal (Dwight's 8-year-old son) losing his mother and then being kidnapped is a fair substitute for one. The strength of Maron's series is that she creates a world in which we are delighted to dwell for a brief spell.

It's too brief, as always, but we can hope for more soon.

PS If anyone figures out the chapter headings, please do a post. Taken from the classics (Homer, Sophocles, various pre- and post-Socratic Greek philosophers, Ovid,) Shakespeare, Flaubert (?!?), Tennyson, and a 1918 book about weather (obviously, many are about the weather, re the title,) the tags presumably make sense to Maron, but I found them to be largely an exercise in the production of non-sequiturs - a distraction.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still Strong, August 27, 2006

By	R. G. Phipps "rphipps124" (Morgantown, WV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Deborah and Dwight are no sooner married than Dwight's past intrudes. In this entry in the Deborah Knott series, Margaret Maron gives Deborah a chance to explore Dwight's life during his first marriage.

Maron fills in much of the missing backstory about Dwight, and his oft mentioned, but never met ex-wife. While the trip to Shaysville is not nearly as satisfying as some of Deborah's previous departures from Colleton County, the story is still very interesting. It's good to see Maron explore what the relationship will be between Dwight, Deborah, and Cal. While I missed the rich local scenery and backstory that Maron usually manages to build when Deborah travels, I think she made a wise choice in focusing on family relationships. It gives us the promise of even richer novels to come.