Three-Day Town

September 12, 2011
Bestseller Maron’s charming 17th Deborah Knott mystery (after 2010’s Christmas Mourning) takes the North Carolina judge and her husband of one year, Dwight Bryant, to New York City for a belated honeymoon. They bear an unusual gift, a small bronze sculpture, for photojournalist Anne Lattimore Harald from Anne’s dying mother, wealthy Jane Lattimore, who’s a distant cousin of Deborah’s. Deborah arranges to meet Anne’s daughter, NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald, who will pick up the gift, at a large party next door to the Manhattan apartment that an absent friend is letting the couple use. When Sigrid and Deborah return to the borrowed apartment, the sculpture is missing from the kitchen counter; worse, the dead body of the building’s super is lying on the balcony. Could someone from the party be responsible for the theft and the murder? Deborah, with her inveterate curiosity, assists Sigrid, last seen in her own series in 1995’s Fugitive Colors, in the official investigation. This is a strong addition to a series that’s won Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards.

November 1, 2011
When Series Collide: Judge Deborah Knott meets NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald. Having delayed their honeymoon for over a year, Deborah Knott and her husband, Colleton County Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant (Christmas Mourning, 2010, etc.), finally head off to Manhattan, where they've been loaned an apartment on the Upper West Side. One of Deborah's distant kinfolk asks her to deliver a small, hefty package to homicide cop Sigrid Harald's mom. But when Sigrid comes to claim it, a beach-party-in-January is raging in the co-op next door, guests are roaming the halls and the package has gone missing, along with some valuable antique boxes. Oddly, a papier maché Mexican cat has been left in their place. More oddly and much worse, the building super is lying dead on the minuscule balcony. Dwight begins making a list of the partygoers while Sigrid calls on reinforcements from the precinct and Deborah tactfully labors to explain what was in the box from the South. The pace picks up when an art curator whom blizzard conditions have stranded in the extra bedroom in Deborah and Dwight's borrowed apartment recognizes the contents as one of sculptor Al Streichert's valuable maquettes, an erotic, racist preliminary model for a major piece of work. One of the building's elevator operators runs off. The son of the co-op board's chairman disappears. Questioning discloses that there's a kleptomaniac in the building; a couple about to be evicted; and security problems with some of the locks. Like many a nosy heroine before her, Deborah lands in the villain's clutches, almost adding to the death total. 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.

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October 1, 2011

Judge Deborah Knott's (Christmas Mourning) honeymoon in New York City is tainted by murder. It's always good to see our favorites in new venues, even if it turns out to be a busman's holiday.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2011
In her seventeenth Deborah Knott mystery, Maron's two series protagoniststhe warm North Carolina judge, Knott, and the cool NYPD lieutenant, Sigrid Harald (last seen in Fugitive Colors, 1995)meet for the first time. A year after their marriage, Deborah and Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant are off to New York for a weeklong honeymoon, staying at Dwight's sister-in-law's Manhattan apartment. They are asked to deliver a package to Sigrid's mother. When Sigrid comes to get the package for her vacationing mother, during a party in a neighboring apartment, the building superintendent is found dead and the risqu' and potentially valuable statue from the package is missing. Then the body of one of the building's elevator men is found in a garbage bag, and the teenage son of the chair of the co-op board goes missing. Maron tosses in plenty of red herrings before Deborah's intuition and curiosity combine to break the case. A reliably entertaining addition to an always enjoyable series, though, by the end, it's clear that, for Deborah and Dwight, home proves a lot more enticing than Broadway glitter.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)