From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Margaret Maron--winner of the Edgar Award, Agatha Award, Anthony Award, and Macavity Award for her classic mystery The Bootlegger's Daughter--comes a stunning mystery featuring NYPD Detective Sigrid Harald.
"Every Margaret Maron is a celebration of something remarkable." -- New York Times Book Review
"Maron writes with wit and sophistication." -- USA Today
"There's nobody better." -- Chicago Tribune
NYPD Detective Sigrid Harald is still reeling from the untimely death of her lover, acclaimed painter Oscar Nauman, when she is called to investigate the poisoning of two homeless men in the West Village. As she examines the mysterious deaths, Sigrid uncovers a grim neighborhood scandal surrounding two influential women: one a haughty mafia widow, the other a retired opera prima donna, both with dark secrets they've kept under wraps for decades. Was the poison really meant for the homeless men, or were they merely unintended victims as the decades-long feud between the two women comes to a head?
And still, Sigrid can't stop wondering what brought her late lover so urgently across the country to the winding mountain road that took his life--until she meets a man who may hold the answers she seeks . . . .
"Opening a new Margaret Maron is like unwrapping a Christmas gift." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Of today's series writers none has been more successful at weaving the bond between star and audience than Margaret Maron." -- San Diego Union-Tribune
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In MWA Grand Master Maron's outstanding 19th mystery featuring judge Deborah Knott of North Carolina's Colleton County (after 2012's The Buzzard Table), Deborah's elderly aunt, Rachel Morton, lies near death in a hospice. Rachel attracts a crowd of friends and relatives as she talks of "babies, fires, and unpaid debts, of someone who beat his wife and of cowbirds and vegetables and broken jars." A distraction allows a killer enough time to slip into Rachel's room and smother her with a pillow, thus ending her ramblings, which apparently concealed deadly secrets. Unraveling those secrets--some 60 years old--is a slow, difficult process with lots of suspects among friends and family. Maron achieves a delicate balance as she explores differences between mistakes, sins, and crimes, and shows that justice is not always arrived at by conventional means. Humor (e.g., Deborah outfoxes an unscrupulous auctioneer) and social issues (e.g., the difficult role of caregivers to the elderly) add to the warmth of a large family with all its foibles, squabbles, and quirks.
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Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on Designated Daughters