Mystery Women Authors

Margaret Maron

Biography

Margaret Maron is a long-time member and luminary of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Maron grew up on a farm near Raleigh, North Carolina, but lived for many years in New York. She is the creator of detective Sigrid Harald, the protagonist of a series of crime novels set in New York. And after a five-year respite in the series, Harald is back on the case in Fugitive Colors.

Maron is also the creator of a highly popular series set in the South. After she returned to North Carolina with her artist-husband, Joe, she began a series based on her southern roots. Bootlegger's Daughter the first Deborah Knott mystery set in rural North Carolina, was a Washington Post bestseller and garnered an unprecedented sweep of awards, winning the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards for best mystery of 1992. Three subsequent Deborah Knott novels have also earned high praise: Southern Discomfort ( nominated for an Agatha), Shooting at Loons (nominated for both Agatha and Anthony awards), and Up Jumps the Devil (nominated for an Agatha). (From Sisters in Crime)

Books

Bloody Kin

Relocating in North Carolina after the accidental death of her husband, Jake, pregnant Kate Honeycutt realizes that her husband's death was not an accident but a deliberate crime linked to his tour of duty in Vietnam. Originally published Doubleday 1985

Published Mass Market Paperbacks July 1995

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Sigrid Harald Mysteries

One Coffee With

There was more than cream in the now deceased Professor Quinn's last coffee, and NYPD detective Sigrid Harald suspects that someone in the art department is responsible.

Published April 1995 Mass Market Paperbacks

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Death of a Butterfly

Published Doubleday 1984

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Death in Blue Folders

NYPD Detective Sigrid Harald investigates the death of a prominent lawyer whose apparently respectable law practice was a front for greed and caprice.

Published Doubleday 1985

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The Right Jack

It takes a lot to crack New York City homicide detective Sigrid Harald's cool-as-ice demeanor. But now she's hot. Her partner was at a posh Manhattan hotel when a bomb blast landed him in intensive care. Who was the real target? Sigrid is determined to find out and put the bomber behind bars before he, or she, strikes again.

Published Mass Market Paperbacks May 1995

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Baby Doll Games

When a shadowy figure kills a dancer in a Greenwich Village theater before an audience of horrified children, NYPD detective Sigrid Harald is outraged and soon has a gut feeling that passion played a large part in the murder. With no physical evidence, she turns to special dolls used by therapists to help children talk about crimes they've witnessed. Previously published by Bantam.

Published June 1995 Mass Market Paperback

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Corpus Christmas

Published 1989 now out of print

Past Imperfect

Looking into the murder of Mickey Cluett, an incompetent cop disliked by most of his peers, Sigrid Harald, the daughter of a cop killed on duty, discovers that this case might provide a clue to her own father's murder.

Published 1991 - out of print

Fugitive Colors

As a New York City police detective, Lt. Sigrid Harald is no stranger to gruesome death. But when her lover, renowned artist Oscar Neuman, dies in a horrible accident, her world turns black. After inheriting millions of dollars worth of Oscar's paintings, and fending off vulturous gallery owners, the most notorious of the art dealers is found murdered.

Published Mysterious Press June 1996

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Deborah Knott Mysteries

Home Fires

North Carolina Judge Deborah Knott engages in her own investigation of an arsonists in the midst of campaigning for reelection in the sixth installment of this award-winning series.

At a stop along her campaign trail, Judge Deborah Knott attends a community picnic at the Mt. Olive Church. When the historic building is destroyed by a fire shortly after the outing - and the charred skeleton of young man is found among the ashes - Knott begins her own investigation into the tragedy.

Earlier national news reports of a fire at a local African-American church had already gained attention of Wallace Adderly, a Black Panther from the '70s. Knott and Adderly team up to discover if the blazes are merely coincidence, or the work of a racist arsonist. As the number of suspects rises, Deborah finds herself re-examining her own
beliefs and values as she and Adderly race to prevent another devastating loss in the community.

Published Mysterious Press December 1998

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Bootlegger's Daughter

This first novel in Maron's Imperfect series, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 1993, introduces heroine Deborah Knott, an attorney and the daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger. Known for her knowledge of the region's past and popular with the locals, Deb is asked by 18-year-old Gayle Whitehead to investigate the unsolved murder of her mother Janie, who died when Gayle was an infant. While visiting the owner of the property where Janie's body was found, Deb learns of Janie's more-than-promiscuous past. Piecing together lost clues and buried secrets Deb is introduced to Janie's darker side, but it's not until another murder occurs that she uncovers the truth.

Edgar Award Winner for Best Novel

Published Mysterious Press1992

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Shooting at Loons

Judge Knott agrees to fill in for a colleague in Beaufort, North Carolina, a picturesque fishing village replete with a corpse. Before she can find out if the fisherman's death is an accident or murder, Deborah is confronted with some business from her own past--when another murder occurs and a former lover is accused.

Published Mass Market paperbacks June 1995

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Southern Discomfort

While participating in the Women Aid project, a program that builds houses for battered and homeless women, Colleton County district judge Deborah Knott finds herself in the middle of a mystery when her niece is assaulted.

Published Mass Market Paperbacks June 1994

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Up Jumps the Devil

n the fourth entry in the acclaimed series, Judge Deborah Knott's table is set with a double helping of Southern-style homicide. As Thanksgiving Day approaches, Judge Knott looks forward to spending some quality time with her lover and family. But the sleepy North Carolina town she calls home witnesses two violent murders that weekend. To complicate things even further, one of the victims is an old moonshining associate of her father's, and now Dad is suspect #1!

Published Mass Market Paperbacks July 1997

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Killer Market

When Deborah Knott fills in for a district court judge in High Point, North Carolina, she has no idea that the International Home Furnishings Market will be taking over the town while she's there. And when the son-in-law of an old law school classmate turns up dead on a pink satin loveseat--with Deborah's handbag found at the scene of the crime--she must table her plans, clear her name--and find as assassin who puts his work on display.

Published Mysterious Press August 1997

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Short Stories

Shovelling Smoke

Published April 1997

Canine Crimes II

Editor Cynthia Manson

Culled from the pages of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, these 13 classics of mystery will show readers why man's best friend can be a killer's worst enemy. Contributors include Margaret Maron, Cyril Hare, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Pauline C. Smith, Robert Campbell and eight others.

Published Berkley Publishing 1997

Web site address

None Found

Other sites for Margaret Maron

A Deborah Knott/Margaret Maron home page.

Page created by Leone Moffat.

Last updated 24-Apr-2002