Uncommon Clay - Hardcover

Maron, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0709070012 ISBN 13: 9780709070016

Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd, 2001

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The dark earth in the piedmont of North Carolina's Randolph Country is heavy with bright clay. And it is of the same rich soil that attracts many of the South's most skilled potters. Also drawn to this region is the visiting judge Deborah Knott. She faces the most exasperating case a judge can handle: overseeing the equitable distribution of marital property after a bitter divorce. The Nordans - James Lucas and Sandra Kay - both potters, are divorcing after almost twenty-five years of marriage. As creative as it was stormy, the Nordans' history together produced great artistic achievements. Much of the credit for this stellar legacy goes to Amos Nordan, James Lucas's father and the proud clan patriarch. But Amos is not untouched by tragedy. Two years earlier an even more talented son Donny, apparently committed suicide in a manner so scandalous that Amos still cannot bear to speak of it. Suddenly, amid the petty bickering, an even more gruesome death strikes the Nordans, and the violence stalking the family homestead threatens to shut down the kilns for good. Judge Knott must use all of her insight into the darkest entanglements of the human heart if she is to trap a determined murderer.

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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

Born and raised in central North Carolina, Margaret Maron lived in Italy before returning to the USA where she and her husband now live. On addition to a collection of short stories she's also the author of 16 mystery novels featuring Lt. Sirgid Harald, NYPD, and District Court Judge Deborah Knott. Her works have been translated into seven languages and are on the reading lists of various courses in contemporary Southern Literature. In 1993 her North Carolina-based Bootlegger's Daughter won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Anthony Award for Best Mystery Novel of the Year, the Agatha Award for Best Traditional Novel and the Macavity for Best Novel - an unprecedented sweep for a single novel. She is a past president of Sisters in Crime and of the American Crime writers' league, and a director on the national board for mystery Writers of America.

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