Judge Deborah Knott blows the lid off a murder investigation with gale force winds in this newest entry in the award-winning series. As Hurricane Fran strikes the North Carolina coast, Judge Knott seeks clues to a motel murder and a determined killer finds a perfect time to strike again. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Judge Deborah Knott of the Colleton County (N.C.) District Court is one of the most delightful and original of contemporary amateur detectives. The youngest of 12 children--and the only girl--she knows everyone in the county and is never shy about poking her nose in all manner of suspicious happenings. Then she sits readers down for a cosy chat about her adventures, as though they were old friends. In the series's seventh novel (Homes Fires), when promiscuous Lynn Bullock is found strangled in the Orchid Motel wearing black lace underwear, suspects include several local men as well as the deceased's attorney husband, Jason, and Deborah's womanizing cousin Reid Stephenson. But Deborah saw all of these men playing softball at the time of the murder. The judge helps investigate the crime, but soon she has to confront another killer--ferocious Hurricane Fran, fast approaching from the coast. Maron immerses the reader in the down-home, inbred world of the rural South, where intertwined family histories are common knowledge and some old-timers, like Deborah's unrepentant bootlegger father, still live by obsolete customs. Colleton County also has a growing population of black and female professionals, as well as spreading residential development to accommodate suburbanites from the coastal cities 150 miles away. One of Maron's many skills is her ability to weave into her story the social changes coming to this region with the speed of that hurricane. Agent, Vicky Bijur. Mystery Guild main selection. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

When someone snuffs out the life of a Colleton County attorney's wife in the local motel, Detective Dwight Bryant gets the case. And since he's best pals with Judge Deborah Knott, who happens to be breaking in her new house nearby, the two gather clues in tandem. The victim's promiscuity surprises no one except her husband, so there are plenty of suspects, including a partner in the Knott family law firm. Elsewhere, a preacher's wife finds out about her husband's infidelity, while their son tracks Hurricane Fran, coming up the North Carolina coast, for his science project. A rousing combination of natural disaster and narrative creativity, this seventh novel in the Deborah Knott series is highly recommended. [Mystery Guild main selection.] Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Writer Margaret Maron grew up in rural North Carolina and later lived in Brooklyn, New York. She has mined her background to create the settings for two successful crime series. A series set in New York features Detective Sigrid Harald and a series set in North Carolina stars Deborah Knott.

Bootlegger's Daughter, the first book in the second series, won the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity awards for best mystery in 1992.

(Bowker Author Biography) Margaret Maron, Margaret Maron grew up on a farm near Raleigh, North Carolina and lived for many years in New York. She is the creator of the Deborah Knott mystery series that is set in the South. The first, "Bootlegger's Daughter," was a bestseller and won the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for Best Mystery of 1992. Other novels in the series have received high praise: " Southern Discomfort" was nominated for an Agatha Award, "Shooting at Loons" was nominated for both the Agatha and Anthony Awards, and "Up Jumps the Devil" was nominated for an Agatha Award. The character, Deborah Knott, begins as an attorney and daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger and progresses to become a District Court Judge.

Maron is also the creator of the heroine detective Sigrid Harald. The first of the Sigrid Harald series was "One Coffee With" and was followed by "Death of a Butterfly," "Death in Blue Folders," "The Right Jack," "Baby Doll Games," "Corpus Christmas," "Past Imperfect" and "Fugitive Colors." She also wrote "Bloody Kin," which tells the story of a pregnant woman whose husbands accidental death is actually a deliberate crime that is linked to his tour of duty in Vietnam.

(Bowker Author Biography) Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.