Reviewed by Sandie Kirkland for RebeccasReads (9/08)


Deborah Knott, district judge in a small town in North Carolina, is concerned about the changes taking place in her area. The old farms are being broken up and ritzy housing developments are growing up everywhere, most on half-acre lots. Along with the new houses come outsiders who think their money trumps the family relationships and trust built on generations of local families, and that their culture should displace the existing one.

As worrisome as the new money is, things get dramatically worse when Candace Bradshaw, chairman of the county commissioners, is found murdered in her big new expensive house. Allegations of political misconduct and insider corruption abound. Deborah's husband, who is a sheriff's deputy, investigates the case, and Deborah finds herself getting drawn in. In addition, her dad, patriarch of one of the old families and a former bootlegger, is acting strange and Deborah is worried about what is going on with him.

The fourteenth mystery in this series is a big hit for Margaret Maron. Those readers who have followed the series will be pleased to come back for another visit with Deborah and her eccentric family. Those readers for whom this is a first read will be quickly drawn into the series and immediately go look for earlier books in the series. I especially liked this one as I live in the area and could relate to the locations and the social relationships outlined. A solid win for Maron.

Margaret Maron's latest novel is the best one, yet! Death's Half Acre has it all: tantalizing politics, family secrets (that you never knew) and a revealing plot starring the old bootlegger, her aged father. You won't be able to put the book down, once you begin. The ending is the best! Never before has Maron's book stumped me this well. Highly recommended for Maron's faithful followers, and a great first read if you are a newcommer to this author's award-winning novels.

I recently discovered Margaret Maron's charming Judge Deborah Knott mystery series. Before you get misled by the whole "judge" thing, let me assure you that these tales aren't loaded with technical legal jargon you're going to have to be up to speed on. Rather, if you're not from the rural areas, you're gonna have to learn ruralisms and add a bit of redneck to your diet.

Maron has carved out a space of her own with her Knott stories, and I look forward to each new novel every year. Deborah Knott has an extended, and complicated, family, and I've adopted them as my own. Sitting down with these books is almost like going back home to attend a family reunion. There's business, of course, but there's also a lot of gossip about what's going on in the family and in the town.

This time around, the ecology of the town and the outlying lands take up a lot of Deborah's - and the reader's - attention. This is an issue I've been taking into consideration myself, especially since my hometown is starting to insist on bursting at the seams. I love the fact that every restaurant I used to drive to is now practically in my back yard, but traffic and population density have gotten to be problems. And a lot of the trees are gone. I miss the trees.

The murder in DEATH'S HALF ACRE takes a while to get discovered, even though it takes place in the opening pages. Maron introduces the other issues and the mystery almost sits on a back burner too long. Once Candace Bradshaw's secret dealings start to slide out into public view, it doesn't take long before another murder becomes necessary.

I like Maron's characters a lot. Not just the family, though they're a hoot, but also the various bit players. Candace Bradshaw reminds me of some of the hard-nosed women and girls I grew up around. Small towns are going to make those women as a byproduct every time because it's easy to get ostracized in a small town.

The pacing was good, and I liked the subplot where Deborah's daddy had to deal with the local reverend who was taking advantage of his flock. Maron ties together a television show and that plot very well, and I saw what was coming just ahead of the reveal, which is the best place to do that.

However, I was disappointed in how little Deborah was in the book at first. She was definitely in at the end, with her life on the line, but through the meat of the book she was conspicuously missing in action. I read these books to hear her "talk" to me, to nudge me and make me think, and to let me know that we have a lot of the same outlooks and values. Hopefully Deborah will be back on stage more in the next novel.

If you haven't discovered this wonderful series, you can pretty much jump in with any of them. Maron lays out the family and the background pretty quickly, then you're usually in the middle of the plot. These mysteries are great for the beach and for quiet, rainy days.

Once again, Margaret Maron writes a compelling mystery with all the right ingredients: a strong believable heroine, a suspenseful plot, a strong sense of place and even a few touches of humor. Luckily I set aside some time on a rainy weekend. It's not a book I can put down easily.

Fans of Deborah Knott will be relieved to find that Deborah's marriage has not weakened the series. We don't get drowned in domestic details but we see glimpses of Deborah enjoying the challenges and rewards of her new roles as wife, stepmother and dog owner. She's caught up in the dynamic economy of North Carolina and the plot details are firmly grounded in 21st century technology and culture.

The plot has been summarized elsewhere. I didn't feel the solution was given away (or else I'm particularly dense) but the ending was consistent, believable and totally satisfying.

As other reviewers noted, Maron has a gift for creating characters who are neither angels nor devils. We might raise an eyebrow at some actions of the "good guys" and it's hard not to be sorry for the villains as they're carted off to jail, served with lawsuits or (in one delightful subplot) simply outwitted by a cunning old-timer.

This series has become one of my favorites. I look forward to each volume and get withdrawal pangs when I finish and realize there's a long wait for the next.

I was very disappointed in Margaret Maron's latest book, "Death's Half Acre." It seemed a little thin to be, both literally and figuratively. One of the main reasons I love these books is because of the main character, Deborah Knott and by extension, the rest of the Knott family. I felt like we did not get nearly the same side stories about her family as we have in the past. And the one we did get, about Kezzie, was BORING.

This book deals with a hot topic, commercialization of rural towns. I thought the story was pretty weak given the material Maron had to work with.

But mainly, I'm irritated because I did not get as much of a glimpse of Deborah and her family as I am used too. Not to much about Cal either, and that could be a big plotline on its own.

Oh well, better luck next year.

Pivotal characters in this fourteenth book of the series are Candace Bradshaw, the beautiful but insecure chairman of the Colleton County board of commissioners; Kezzie Knott, Deborah's aging but wiley father; and Faison McKinney, a demanding and underhanded preacher. These people and other characters in the book are involved in land schemes, illicit sex, and even murder. As usual author Margaret Maron spins the plots and characters in a way which keeps the reader interested from cover to cover.

My favorite moments in the series are when Judge Deborah Knott is with her husband, Dwight, and stepson, Cal, or they are with her large, extended family. You gotta love a woman who has 11 older brothers and who overcomes having a bootlegging father to become a judge, devoted to upholding the law. Deborah and the series seem to have adjusted to her as a married woman and the books have returned to being as entertaining as the first ones of the series.

What I enjoy most about Maron's mysteries are hearing about them in Deborah's voice which is insightful, amusing and often witty. We get much less of Deborah's voice in this offering because of the staging of the plot. It wasn't hard to figure out early on "who done it" in this mystery. It was enjoyable but not one of her best efforts.

I actually liked this one *better* than her last (predictable) few books. Yes, I guess it was predictable, too, in its way, but somehow the story line was more engaging. Still, I am tired of "Daddy" being God to Deborah, while God Himself sure takes a few hits from the author. Believe it or not, Ms. Maron, not every minister is on the take, and not all of them hate/fear women. And Kezzie isn't much of a philosopher. Also, your readers are probably fairly sure that Deborah's and Dwight's intimate life is fine, without the anatomical details.
Still, the first victim is complex enough to hold the reader's attention, and so was the unfolding plot, though it was not impossible to see where it was going. Satisfying conclusion, and I was surprised at the murderer, and ashamed that I was!!!! :-)

Real estate is at the heart of this novel, the 14th in the Deborah Knott series. Like other places in the South, Margaret Maron's fictional Colleton County has enjoyed/suffered a real estate boom bringing new suburb into direct conflict with the old way of life in the rural South. Judge Deborah Knott sees these conflicts play out in her courtroom every working day.

Candace Bradshaw was trailer park trash but she married old money and has parlayed a cleaning service into wealth. Separated from her much older husband and former boss, she's been sleeping her way into political influence and a seat on the planning commission. No one quite believes it when she's found dead, an apparent suicide, but the note in her handwriting implies that she's been taking kickbacks from developers and everyone can believe that!

Deborah is also bothered over the death of the editor to the local paper. He was a victim of a hit-and-run accident months ago, and the police were unable to trace the car. Since then, the local paper has lost its investigative and muckraking edge. Deborah's also worried by her father's strange behavior. Where did he get the jewelry he was showing in the pawn shop?

The one weakness in this book is that we get less of Deborah's first-person narrative. This is because Maron is being fair to the reader, and telling us what Deborah doesn't know. Now what Deborah doesn't find out won't hurt her, but it makes the reader laugh out loud.

I have read all her books and this is not as good as the others for several reasons. She appears to be a hard core ecologist and the first third of the book is about urban sprawl and organic farming. Whatever you feel about these subjects, they don't advance the book.
secondly, she spends much time exploring the evils of fundamental Christianity and how it is anti feminism. One whole sub plot is about the macinisms of a old time hell fire preacher and how he get his comeuppance for mistreating women. Why, who knows; maybe a minister bit her mother when she was pregnant.
all-in-all a good book but it could have been better. If you had dropped the politics, it would have been a good short story. To misquote the bible;" she sold her birthright for a pot of message."

Except for the degrading Christian fundamentalism story line that was hard to read, (although I'm afraid it's all too true in what used to be my country, what with all the theocrats trying to shove their Taliban-like beliefs on the thinking masses); I liked the book.

This isn't Maron's strongest book, but it's a solid entry in the series. The villain was more obvious than usual. It's not telegraphed, but it was my early pick. However, I don't read these books for puzzle solving. I read them for characters and the setting. Still, the procedures, politics and such make the books more about the characters learning who the murderer is than the reader finding it out with plenty of slices of life along the way.

First of all, I like Deborah and Dwight married. Deborah's quit going from man to man, bad choice to bad choice, to a good man. There's chemistry there which I enjoy. I like that they work in conjunction in solving the mystery and that multiple viewpoints are offered, beyond their two, too.

I also appreciate the Southern setting where there's an array of Southern characters, all true and faithful to their setting, but they never become caricatures. So many series, especially cozies, rely on caricature and stereotypes. Sometimes Maron's villains might lean towards that problem, but they still fail to fall into the mark. (I don't consider Maron a cozy writer, either, although she's clean and circumspect enough to fit in that market.)

The plot summary can be read on the cover or Amazon, but Maron always offers up food for thought, too. This time she explores an old-fashioned church congregation where women are subjugated as well as the building and population booms in once rural areas. Even when we don't like characters, we can find some sympathy with them, at least most of them. The possible villains in this one were played a little less sympathetic than usual for Maron. Still, there is respect and understanding of the culture and its occupants. Everyone feels real, many would make wonderful friends. And once a year, when I get to read a new Maron novel, they are. My only disappointment is that the book wasn't longer!

In North Carolina, rural Colleton County commissioner Candace "don't call me Candy" Bradshaw commits suicide stunning everyone. Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant investigates to insure that Candace did kill herself even with the note she left behind claiming bad deeds, the woman seemed to have everything going. He soon begins to uncover why as greed, official corruption, and homicide seem to have tentacles throughout the county; kickbacks to award construction of housing and malls is prevalent.

Bryant's wife Judge Deborah Knott is working mostly on small-claims suits that include many small farmers being squeezed off the land in a big government eminent domain grab. She worries these cases are going to cost her future in local politics even more than her reprobate father Kezzie, a infamous bootlegging con man who swears he is retired, but she assumes he is cooling his heels setting up his next sting.

The key to this cozy and the entire Knott series is how realistic the Carolina blue cast feels. Readers will enjoy this fine entry as Dwight struggles with a case that looks like suicide yet has some doubts while his wife worries about the impact of whatever her father's next travesty will be while also getting involved in the Bradshaw death. Readers will enjoy the deep look at development on the rural locals of Colleton County as fraud and bribery are the American way.

Harriet Klausner