9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Maron's 11th outing for Judge Deborah Knott!, Oct 10 2005
By L. Quido "quidrock" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Rituals of the Season (Hardcover)
Is entertaining and just the right mix of legal matters, mystery, and personal feelings and happenings for young judge Deborah, who, I marvel, is the 12th child of Kezzie Knott, born after his 11 sons. Kezzie, one of the more memorable characters (a backwoods moonshiner with a high intellect and a legendary family) makes a brief appearance at the end of the story, as Deborah finally ties the knot with deputy Dwight Bryant.
Maron skillfully mixes the wedding (with all the trimmings) while digging in to interlocking crimes. One is the sad murder of a local Assistant DA, one a long-ago murder by a woman who is now on death row. Both Dwight and Deborah get caught in the underpinnings, and effectively work together...going up a blind alley until the truth presents itself.
Maron's stories of North Carolina, where she's a native, draw you in and make you feel as though you are there. Her heroine is charming and wise, and the stories just keep getting better. It will be interesting to see where Maron takes the series now that Deborah has a new role in life.
A great read!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Family Story, July 31 2006
By Lorene Robbins "Lorene Robbins Author of The ... - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Rituals of the Season (Hardcover)
In Rituals of the Season, Margaret Maron focuses largely on family- Deborah Knott's huge, extended family and her new family with her upcoming wedding to Dwight Bryant. There is a mystery involving the shooting of an Assistant district Attorney, and another mystery involving the conviction of a local woman who was sentenced to Death Row for clubbing her stepson to death with a softball bat. However, these are peripheral to the hustle and bustle surrounding a Christmas wedding.
I did find myself getting lost in the numerous cast of characters many times-- Maron helpfully put a family tree type chart at the beginning of the book showing all of Deborah's brothers and their families but the chart did not account for all the cousins and aunts and uncles and friends and other attorneys and sheriff's department personnel-- I had to constantly flip pages back to figure out who anybody was.
Other than that, it's an enjoyable book-- although it's really not much of a mystery.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
another enjoyable addition to the series, Aug 22 2005
By E Rice - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Rituals of the Season (Hardcover)
i sat down with this book the moment i opened the shipping box and did manage to go to bed without finishing it the same day.
i did not guess the murderer in the first three chapters, which is always a plus after decades of mystery reading. the plot was well laid out and the clues are there is you really want them. the dialogue was enjoyable, especially the bits of traditional speech which is, as in any part of the country, disappearing.
and, of course, the usual cast of friends and family made its appearance. as with most series, the development of the characters' lives is at least as much a draw as the mystery.
for fans of the series, this will be a particularly enjoyable episode. new readers will enjoy the mystery and be confused by the family, but that's all the more reason to read the rest of the the deborah knott books.