(Posted for Ann Roberts)
This book was recommended to me by a WRITER so I had great expectations for it and was, of course, disappointed. I like whodunits. I don’t know why. But, I like well-written whodunits and this one fell short of the mark for me. It is possible to write really nice, even what we might call beautiful prose in the course of divulging a mystery. James Lee Burke can do it. He writes beautifully descriptive passages about the landscape or a character, and it makes reading all his works compelling. Set in South Carolina, this book offers up the same kind of opportunity for descriptive writing as the setting in Burke’s novels, and Maron did eventually write some nice descriptive passages about the setting-but it was too little too late for me. It almost felt like the last chapter started out as a stand alone essay, and evolved into a thrown together novel, employing cheap tricks and red herrings aplenty.
In the first of a series of mysteries involving the character Deborah Knott, a defense attorney, finds herself running for district court judge in the midst of trying to solve a cold case, the murder of the mother of a little girl for whom she once baby sat in her teens. Throwing her political career and life in jeopardy, Deborah uncovers the dark past of the murdered mom and stumbles upon troubling truths about many of the upstanding members of her community, including evidence of many unhappy domestic relationships. I will admit, the ending is a surprise, but it’s one of those “Seriously, this is the best you could come up with?” surprise endings, that I can live without. A few almost fully realized characters round out the tale, including Deborah’s “daddy”, the quite elderly and supportive former bootlegger of Colleton County. The figure of daddy offers the most complete, believable character this book has too offer.
All that negativity aside, I might read more, just to see if the series improves and I have an idea that it might.
Paperback, 261 (typo ridden) pages
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