Sat 4 Feb 2017
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: MARGARET MARON – Southern Discomfort.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
MARGARET MARON – Southern Discomfort. Deborah Knott #2, Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1993; paperback, 1994.
I thought that Bootlegger’s Daughter was one of the finest series debuts I’d read, and looked forward to the second with both anticipation and apprehension. Would it live up to the first? You bet.
Deborah Knott is a judge now, having been appointed to fill the term of an incumbent who died of a heart attack. The book opens as she is sworn in, and we follow her through the first few days of her judgeship. She and a niece, the daughter of her electrician brother, are helping in building a house for an organization called WomenAid.
The project, and Deborah’s life, take a turn for the worse when, she discovers her niece unconscious at the site, the victim of attempted rape, and her assailant is later found there with his head bashed in. Even worse, her brother suffers a heart attack the same night; but did he have time to kill his daughter’s assailant first? And did he?
This is an excellent book in all respects, from start to finish. While it’s difficult to say what Maron’s greatest strength is as a writer, certainly one of her strongest points is characterization. Not only Deborah, but each person of significance is sharply delineated, and made to come alive on the page. As I remarked on reading the first Knott story, I have never lived in North Carolina, but I know the rural south, and so does Maron. These are people I have known. They speak as people of the south speak, and they act as people of the south act.
The story is told first person, in an extremely attractive voice. If you don’t like Deborah Knott, you’re at least a misogynist, and probably a misanthropist. The plot is designed to keep her at the center of the story without contrivance, and is brought to a believable end.
The prose is straightforward when moving the story along, and strongly evocative where appropriate. As was the first in the series, it is not only a fine mystery, but a fine book. Maron has emerged as one of the best.
UPDATE: Southern Comfort was nominated for both the Agatha and Anthony awards. There are now 20 books in Margaret Maron’s Deborah Knott series, and nine in the Lt. Sigrid Harald series mostly written at the beginning of her career. Note, though, that the ninth (and final one) is scheduled to be published in June, after a gap of some 22 years. The two characters turn out to have family connections in common, and they met in the book Three-Day Town.
February 4th, 2017 at 5:26 pm
An earlier review had me go back and start reading this series, and have enjoyed what I have read so far.
February 4th, 2017 at 10:56 pm
I read a few of the Sigrid Harald books and found them good but far from great, so when Maron started doing the Knott books, I decided not to follow along with her, even though they got uniformly good reviews, such as this one by Barry.
I admit that the thought of reading a book in which the leading character was “Judge Knott” may also have something to with it. I did not think Maron was all that serious about the series, but apparently I was wrong.
February 5th, 2017 at 6:39 am
Sigrid Harald was, for the most part, a cold, unappealing character (IMHO). Deborah Knott is anything but. I agree, as I so often did, with Barry. The second in the series was just as good as the first, which won just about every award the field had to offer (and deservedly so). If the rest of the books haven’t quite hit that high level, they have been consistently good and usually more than that. I like series where characters do grow and evolve and lives move on as they do for the rest of us, and this one fits the bill. I read each new book as it comes out (and with Knott having 11 brothers, the list of characters is a help), and while I like the books set at home (so to speak) more than the few where Knott is sent on the road, they are all worth your time, though they should definitely be read in order.
February 5th, 2017 at 2:10 pm
All non-seriousness aside, by the time I’d realized I should be reading the series, I also realized that they ought to be read in order, just as you say, Jeff. The problem of finding where I had stashed the first one away after buying it early on was just another lame excuse I used, alas, for never doing so.
February 6th, 2017 at 9:20 pm
Steve,
judge not lest ye miss a damn good mystery writer’s best series.