Uncommon Clay (8) (Deborah Knott Mystery) - Hardcover

Maron, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0692780602 ISBN 13: 9780692780602

Publisher: Maron and Company, 2016

Synopsis

Since its inception, the Judge Deborah Knott series has garnered all the top mystery prizes and received overwhelming accolades. Now Margaret Maron presents an engrossing tale of Southern arts and sudden death . . .

North Carolina’s Randolph County is heavy with bright red clay and home to generations of skilled potters. Two of the best are James Lucas Nordan and Sandra Kay Hitchcock, locked in a bitter divorce after twenty-five years of marriage. Enter Judge Deborah Knott, who must settle the most exasperating part of any divorce case—the equitable distribution of marital property.

As creative as it was stormy, the Nordans’ marriage produced great artistic achievement that continued the legacy of James Lucas’s father and proud clan patriarch. Old Amos Norton is no stranger to tragedy. Two years earlier, his more talented son, Donny, committed suicide . . . in a manner so scandalous that Amos still can’t bear to speak of it.

Suddenly, amid the petty bickering, an even more gruesome death strikes the Nordans again. Violence stalks the family homestead as the sins of the past catch up with the Nordan family. Judge Knott knows she must summon all her considerable insight into the darkest entanglements of the human heart, if she is to stop a malevolent killer well-crafted in the art of murder.

About this title

Review

"In this eighth book in the Judge Deborah Knott series (after 2000's Storm Track), Maron employs spare, straightforward prose and the languid language of the Carolina Piedmont to spin an exceptionally gripping tale of hate, jealousy and murder. Still smarting from the betrayal of her lover, Kidd Chapin, the redoubtable jurist travels to Randolph County, N.C., in order to settle the equitable distribution of the marital property of a pair of freshly divorced potters, Sandra Kay Nordan and James Lucas Nordan. Before she can finish her legal duties, however, somebody bakes James Lucas in a kiln. Deborah's own sense of loss in the wake of Kidd's rejection helps her empathize with patriarch Amos Nordan's multiple tragedies (another son died two years earlier) as well as a hired woman's grief over her retarded son. Amidst a beautifully evoked flowering spring countryside, Deborah pursues the murderer with her usual keen eye and common sense. If the book fairly swells with passion, a healthy dose of Southern humor keeps things from getting too maudlin. By the time the story reaches its dramatic conclusion, readers will be in mourning, wishing the end hadn't come so soon. Maron's mastery of jurisprudence, her well-researched depiction of the potting world but especially her sensitive portrayal of human relationships raise this novel far above the ordinary run of mysteries." -- Publishers Weekly (2001)

About the Author

MARGARET MARON grew up on a farm near Raleigh, North Carolina, but for many years lived in Brooklyn, New York. When she returned to her North Carolina roots with her artist-husband, Joe, she began a series based on her own background. The first book, Bootlegger's Daughter, became a Washington Post best-seller that swept the major mystery awards for its year and is among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Later Deborah Knott novels Up Jumps the Devil, Storm Track, and Three-Day Town each won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. In 2008, Maron received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state's highest civilian honor. And in 2013, The Mystery Writers of America celebrated Maron's contributions to the mystery genre by naming her a Grand Master-an honor first bestowed on Agatha Christie. In 2016, she was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. To find out more about the author, you can visit MargaretMaron.com. Ebooks are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

About this edition

• Publisher: Maron and Company
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0692780602
• ISBN 13: 9780692780602
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304