The Buzzard Table (Deborah Knott Series #18)

by Margaret Maron

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Margaret Maron returns with a thrilling new Deborah Knott mystery . . .

THE BUZZARD TABLE

Judge Deborah Knott and her husband, Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, are back home in Colleton County amid family and old friends. But the winter winds have blown in several new faces as well. Lt. Sigrid Harald and her mother, Anne, a well-known photographer, are down from New York to visit Mrs. Lattimore, Anne's dying mother. When the group gathers for dinner at Mrs. Lattimore's Victorian home, they meet the enigmatic Martin Crawford, an ornithologist researching a book on Southern vultures. He's also Mrs. Lattimore's long-lost nephew. With her health in decline, Mrs. Lattimore wants to make amends with her family-a desire Deborah can understand, as she, too, works to strengthen her relationship with her young stepson, Cal.

Anne is charmed by her mysterious cousin, but she cannot shake the feeling that there is something familiar about Martin . . . something he doesn't want her or anyone else to discover. When a string of suspicious murders sets Colleton County on edge, Deborah, Dwight, and Sigrid once again work together to catch a killer, uncovering long-buried family secrets along the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446555821
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	11/20/2012
Series:	Deborah Knott Series , #18
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Margaret Maron grew up in the country near Raleigh, North Carolina, but for many years lived in Brooklyn, New York. When she and her artist husband returned to the farm that had been in her family for a hundred years, she began a series based on her own background. The first book, Bootlegger's Daughter, became a Washington Post bestseller that swept the major mystery awards for its year — winning the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for Best Novel — and is among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

Later, her Deborah Knott novels Up Jumps the Devil, Storm Track, and Three-Day Town each also won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. Margaret is also the author of the Sigrid Harald series of detective novels. In 2008, Maron received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the highest civilian honor the state bestows on its authors. 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. To find out more about her, you can visit MargaretMaron.com.

Editorial Reviews

…one of Margaret Maron's smartly written mysteries set in Colleton County, a rural region of North Carolina that's home to the well-liked Judge Deborah Knott…
—Marilyn Stasio

The New York Times Book Review

In Maron's intriguing 18th Deborah Knott mystery, the North Carolina judge teams with the author's other series lead, NYPD homicide detective Sigrid Harald, as she did in 2011's Agatha-winning Three-Day Town. When Sigrid and her mother, photojournalist Anne Lattimore Harald, travel to Cotton Grove, N.C., to visit Sigrid's ailing grandmother, Deborah enlists Anne to help a young photographer, Jeremy Harper, who has been sentenced for trespassing after he attempted to photograph CIA "rendition flights" from the Colleton County airstrip. Meanwhile, the disappearance of promiscuous realtor Rebecca Jowett, the strange activities of British ornithologist Martin Crawford (who's studying turkey vultures), and the murder of a pilot staying at a local hotel provide plenty of investigative grist for Deborah's police officer husband, Dwight Bryant, as well as for Sigrid. Maron successfully combines a look at family foibles and relationships with a series of moral choices that challenge the characters' sense of law and justice. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Smartly written"—The New York Times

"Maron is at the top of her form"—Our State Magazine

"As always, Maron skillfully layers an absorbing plot with the doings of Deborah's large extended family and the domestic details of their semirural lifestyle. In addition, the contrast between Deborah, who is warm and caring, and Sigrid, who is reserved and cerebral, gives Maron's tale added depth."—Booklist

"Maron...adroitly melds ugly American (open) government secrets with classic whodunit intrigue and stirs the pot by itemizing domestic travails that will touch readers' hearts."—Kirkus Reviews

"In Maron's intriguing 18th Deborah Knott mystery...Maron successfully combine a look at family foibles and relationships with a series of moral choices that challenges the characters' sense of law and justice."—Publishers Weekly

"This book has plenty of suspense and the characters are well done. One of Ms. Maron's strengths is the believability of her characters. They add to the story and don't distract the reader with useless red herrings. As usual, the interplay between Dwight and Deborah is wonderfully romantic even in the midst of a murder. I have to say that I will be glad to see them back home in the next book. I just love the family dynamics and the southern ambiance in these books. Can't wait for the next book in the series!!"—imainlinefiction.blogspot.com on THREE-DAY TOWN

"Dwight's obsession with New York gourmet delights and Deborah's passion for stylish, impractical footwear are charming, but Sigrid's slow but steady police work carries the day. Fans who have hankered for Deborah and Sigrid to find themselves in the same story will be charmed."—Kirkus on THREE-DAY TOWN

"This is a strong addition to a series that's won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards."—Publishers Weekly on THREE-DAY TOWN

"[Maron] plots like a modern-day Christie, but the North Carolina charm is all her own."—Kirkus on CHRISTMAS MOURNING

"Warm and authentic family relationships are the heart of this evergreen series."—Publishers Weekly on CHRISTMAS MOURNING

"[A] winning entry and a fine holiday mystery."—Booklist on CHRISTMAS MOURNING

"There's nobody better."
—Chicago Tribune

"Every Margaret Maron is a celebration of something remarkable."—New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

"Every Margaret Maron is a celebration of something remarkable."

New York Times Book Review

"There's nobody better."

Chicago Tribune

"[A] winning entry and a fine holiday mystery."

Booklist on CHRISTMAS MOURNING

"This book has plenty of suspense and the characters are well done. One of Ms. Maron's strengths is the believability of her characters. They add to the story and don't distract the reader with useless red herrings. As usual, the interplay between Dwight and Deborah is wonderfully romantic even in the midst of a murder. I have to say that I will be glad to see them back home in the next book. I just love the family dynamics and the southern ambiance in these books. Can't wait for the next book in the series!!"

imainlinefiction.blogspot.com on THREE-DAY TOWN

"As always, Maron skillfully layers an absorbing plot with the doings of Deborah's large extended family and the domestic details of their semirural lifestyle. In addition, the contrast between Deborah, who is warm and caring, and Sigrid, who is reserved and cerebral, gives Maron's tale added depth."

Booklist

"Maron is at the top of her form"

Our State Magazine

"Smartly written"

The New York Times

This time NYPD Lt. Sigrid Herald is on Deborah and Dwight's home turf when a murdered ornithologist is revealed to have unexpected connections to 1990s Somalia. Number 18 (after Three-Day Town) for this series favorite.

Library Journal

Every family has secrets. Some are even worth telling. Deborah Knott never admitted to her husband, Dwight, how she got her judgeship. Dwight never told her what happened in Germany when he was a Company man. And his son, Cal, fessed up to Deborah that he wanted to be adopted only after a pal ratted him out and she confronted him about it. But these little evasions pale in comparison to the big one that's motivated Martin Crawford to come to Colleton County, N.C., and settle in a tenant house owned by his ailing aunt, who's marshaling all her remaining Southern charm to entertain two other visiting relatives, NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald and her mother, Anne, the Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist. Because Martin spends most of his time taking pictures of vultures--at least, that's what he says--he happens to be in the vicinity of the trash site where someone has dumped an all too promiscuous realtor. He also happens to be nearby when teenager Jeremy Harper is bashed into a coma. And unfortunately for Martin, he happens to have followed the vultures to the local airstrip, where he may have entered a pilot's motel room and snapped his neck. Is Martin responsible for all the mayhem, or are the attacks and murders unrelated? Sheriff's Deputy Dwight, with an assist from Sigrid, a memory that resurfaces for Anne and an alibi that disintegrates, finally assigns the right motives--jealousy and revenge--to the right persons, discomfiting a philandering husband and unsettling the FBI and the CIA. Maron (Three-Day Town, 2011, etc.) adroitly melds ugly American (open) government secrets with classic whodunit intrigue and stirs the pot by itemizing domestic travails that will touch readers' hearts.

Kirkus Reviews