Items related to Up Jumps the Devil (A Judge Deborah Knott mystery)
Synopsis
Judge Deborah Knott should have known better than to take a casserole to a neighbour's house of sorrow. Yes, she owed something to his memory when she heard he'd been killed, but she should have realized that his big-haired, chain-smoking widow wasn't as innocent as she pretended. Yet paying a condolence call on a murderer is only the least of the young judge's problems in this the fourth of Margaret Maron's award winning series. Another neighbour is killed almost immediately and this time, no one knows why. Is it because his farm has quadrupled in value? Is it his collection of old classic cars? Or has he fatally jerked a killer's chain one time too many? In the meantime, skeletons keep dropping out of Deborah's own closet every time she opens the door. A past lover shows up to the bemusement of her present lover, her brother seems to have an urgent need for ready cash and she can never be too sure if her own father, and ex-moonshiner, is quite as retired as he says he is. Now the judge must decide whether family loyalties or judicial standards will prevail.
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Review
"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." -- Publishers Weekly (1996)
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. In addition to a collection of short stories she's also the author of 16 mystery novels. Her works have been translated into seven languages her Bootlegger's Daughter, a Washington Post Bestseller won Edgar Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity awards. 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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- PublisherRobert Hale Ltd
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0709070616
- ISBN 13 9780709070610
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages245
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