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The Buzzard Table A Deborah Knott Mystery Margaret Maron 9780446555821 Books

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The Buzzard Table A Deborah Knott Mystery Margaret Maron 9780446555821 Books

I've loved Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series from the beginning, valuing her keen ear for dialogue, her sense of place, and her gift for seeing both the old and the new South as they uneasily coexist. The Colleton County books are light-years better than the books in distant settings, but all of them are too short.

Maron writes single-plot mysteries. Oh sure, there's generally a bit of parallel silliness that gets worked out along with the murders, but there's no shifting focus among characters, no complex metaphors, nothing seriously unpleasant in the lives of Deborah and her family. Like sweet ice-tea, the narratives go down smoothly with none of the personal agony we find in Louise Penny's novels. And that's fine. I'll even admit that -- before reading Penny -- I thought that mysteries had to be complex and depressing or simple and unchallenging. And I would never have wanted Deborah's stories to be depressing.

There is, however, a point of diminishing returns for niceness in a long-running series, and for the last three or four novels I feared that the Deborah Knott books had reached/passed that point. But Maron seems to have written herself out of this dead end. By combining this series with her NYC novels, the author gave us the swift-moving action in Three-Day Town, followed immediately by moving the same cast down South for this book. This is certainly the most tightly-plotted of the Colleton County books, with an interesting dash of moral dilemma arising at the end. All of the main characters develop interesting wrinkles, while the visitors add some much-needed angst.


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The Buzzard Table A Deborah Knott Mystery Margaret Maron 9780446555821 Books Reviews

The big ball is in Major Dwight Bryant's court and the coordinated no drama Sheriff's Department. Visiting Detective Sigrid Harald, from NYC finest just finds herself hanging around observing. We have vultures (more info than you ever wanted to know), a Brit with a past, a murdered real estate broker, a mischevious, nosey, enterprising teenager, Judge Knott displaying sensitivity and sanity. Stir the pot on this road kill stew and it is 300 pages of satisfaction. These characters will be missed. Call you are turning out just fine!
This novel deals with Aristotle's ethical dilemma, i.e., you need to make a choice between two courses of action, neither of which is entirely right. It also deals with a basic social concept that "some people need killing." Deborah Knott is a judge, and her husband Dwight is second in command in the sheriff's office. Both are sworn to uphold the law, but the ethical/moral questions become issues.

So, the cast of characters - local resident Mrs. Lattimore is dying. This brings family members to town including Lt. Sigrid Harald (the author's other main character) and her mother Anne (a Pulitzer Prize winning photograher who survived a near fatal incident 20 years before). There is also Anne's cousin, Martin, who has not been in contact with the family for years - he is an ornithologist studying turkey vultures, aka, buzzards, but something does not seem right about him, and Anne is sure she has met him somewhere in the past - they have both traveled extensively around the world. We also have teenager Jeremy Harper, a wannabe investigative reporter/photographer who was involved at a demonstration at the local airport - protesting rendition flights that were stopping enroute to other places. Then we have a second plot about the death of a local real estate agent who had been fooling around with other women's husbands (some men are easily led astray).

The sheriff's department is still three people short because of budget problems, and they find themselves dealing with multiple crimes including the murder of the real estate agent, the murder of a guest at a local motel, and a near fatal attack on the aforementioned teenager. Judge Knott, of course, has the usual range of cases including a disgusting case where a disgruntled employee of a local business had been adding something to the coffee in the break room (don't do this at home - it will get you into a lot of trouble). Events are complicated when the FBI arrives on the scene to take over a case - for reasons they will not reveal.

There are things about Dwight's past that he has never revealed to Deborah, and it is necessary to grapple with major moral questions. There is also a lot of circumstantial evidence, and questions about making arrests. All of this comes together in the end, and justice is served in different ways.

Along the way, the plot deals with some additional activities in Deborah's family, and there are some additional facts about earlier lives. You will also learn a lot about turkey vultures.
Reading Margaret Maron's books featuring Deborah Knott and family is like visiting with old and increasingly dear friends. The latest book, The Buzzard Table, is no exception. There are two plots which are tied together at the end one the murder of a real estate agent and the second the mystery surrounding a previously unknown cousin who studies vultures. The solution of the murder is complicated by an attack on a high school student which may or may not be related to the murder, or to the activities of the cousin which apparently have something to do with the local airport that serves as a transit for rendition flights of prisoners from Guatanamo to other countries, countries with no quibbles about respecting human rights. The story moves quickly to a satisfactory end. While Deborah's family members make their obligatory appearances, they are far less ubiquitous in this novel and the family relationship shifts to that of visiting Sigrid Harald, her mother, and dying grandmother who has been a pillar of the community. The mysterious cousin is their close kin (although in the way of Southern communities, a distant cousin of Deborah's through her mother). In addition to interesting and fast moving plots, another strength of the Deborah Knotts's novels is the growing complexity of the individuals and their relationships with each other. Deborah's relationship with her stepson is strengthened in a lovely ending. And as a result of the explanation at the end about the mysterious cousin and his activities, we are given a hint about Dwight's days in Army Intelligence. Dwight is a far more complex person than his laid back persona reveals. As always, the North Carolina setting is brought vividly to life through descriptions of places, customs, and people.
I've loved Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series from the beginning, valuing her keen ear for dialogue, her sense of place, and her gift for seeing both the old and the new South as they uneasily coexist. The Colleton County books are light-years better than the books in distant settings, but all of them are too short.

Maron writes single-plot mysteries. Oh sure, there's generally a bit of parallel silliness that gets worked out along with the murders, but there's no shifting focus among characters, no complex metaphors, nothing seriously unpleasant in the lives of Deborah and her family. Like sweet ice-tea, the narratives go down smoothly with none of the personal agony we find in Louise Penny's novels. And that's fine. I'll even admit that -- before reading Penny -- I thought that mysteries had to be complex and depressing or simple and unchallenging. And I would never have wanted Deborah's stories to be depressing.

There is, however, a point of diminishing returns for niceness in a long-running series, and for the last three or four novels I feared that the Deborah Knott books had reached/passed that point. But Maron seems to have written herself out of this dead end. By combining this series with her NYC novels, the author gave us the swift-moving action in Three-Day Town, followed immediately by moving the same cast down South for this book. This is certainly the most tightly-plotted of the Colleton County books, with an interesting dash of moral dilemma arising at the end. All of the main characters develop interesting wrinkles, while the visitors add some much-needed angst.