An excellent murder mystery, even though the first corpse doesn’t show up until about page 120 or so.
After that. Lost time is made up for and there is a respectable count by the end of the book. The slices of southern small town life are enjoyable, though the author’s fixation on what her protagonist and every other woman in the book weighs and how they look in their clothes is a bit off putting.plot nice and taut though, characters developed enough and everything falls into place easily .
Warning for those who find sexual violence and or child abuse upsetting…the contents are hard to take ( )

I almost put this one away, several times. The judge isn't really the judge; she just builds houses as a charity and gets followed by bad guys. It seemed to me like Opie, Goober and Gomer were alive and well, not to mention the Asian yard man who devours dogs. Where's the mystery? I don't think that I will bother with the rest of this series. ( )

A little light on the mystery (or rather, three mysteries) and a little long on the Southern family ties, but a serviceable story. ( )

This is the second book in the Deborah Knott mystery series. In this book we find the bootlegger's daughter being sworn in as a state judge. I really enjoy Margaret Maron's southern mysteries. Not only are the mysteries tricky, but all the Southern mannerisms, names and their culture are included in each book. There is lots happening in Deborah's little town in South Carolina. There is a local lothario who is terrorizing the young girls in the community. There is a charity home being built by the women in the town. And some men around town seem to be having heart attacks and strokes more than usual. Deborah manages to straighten all this out with the help of her plentiful family and friends, I listened to this book on audio, and I have to admit it was a good way to enjoy this mystery. The narrator brought all the colourful characters to life. It's like being an in-person observer to life with Deborah. ( )

Reading Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott novels is like stepping back into where I lived and worked for so long. I have known these people, or at least their twins, for all of my life. And I remember when women had to prove themselves better than men doing the same job to have the same level of approbation.

The mysteries were challenging, although one plays into stereotypes true when it was written back in 1993. It is easy to see why it was nominated for both the Agatha and Edgar awards. The bonus is the social interactions in this very North Carolina family.

So take a trip back to the early 1990s in rural North Carolina. If you like mysteries or good Southern writing, this book might well suit you. ( )