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High Country Fall

by Margaret Maron

Margaret Maron writes books about a female judge, Deborah Knott, that you can always look forward to. Writing about the South and the southern states, Ms. Maron still manages to always move Deborah about – providing us with various locales and their sundry populace while simultaneously bringing them adroitly to life before our very eyes. High Country Fall is such a story; involving greed, corruption and a vicious scam with our female judge plunked down in the middle of it all.

Simon Proffitt owns a rather ugly establishment in the otherwise perfect, pretty tourist town of Cedar Gap. Dr. Carlyle Ledwig and his friend Norman Osborne have tried numerous times to get him to sell. They're both interested in real estate deals, among other things. Osborne confides to his wife Sunny that Ledwig doesn't know about one thing that will keep the Osbornes from total monetary disaster. Then Ledwig is murdered.

Judge Deborah Knott has finally decided to marry her longtime friend Dwight, a policeman in her home town. Unfortunately for her, all her family, friends and neighbors live close by and are inundating Deborah with wedding showers, gifts and general burbling, which she can't stand. So Judge Knott welcomes a temporary offer to spend some time elsewhere – and of course that 'elsewhere' turns out to be Cedar Gap. Deborah is staying at a cousin's condo, which the cousin's two college-age twin daughters (May and June) are supposed to be painting between classes. When Deborah arrives, she finds the condo in a mess and too few of the rooms painted at all. What she does find is an urgent message from a Carla asking the twins to call her back.

Judge Knott's first day in the new court brings her the usual riff-raff, but among them is a young man named Daniel Freeman, accused of murdering Dr. Carlyle Ledwig. He pleads Not Guilty. Although murder trials are always the province of the state's Superior Courts, they must first be bound over in the District Court, where Deborah Knott holds sway. It seems that Mr. Freeman wanted to marry Carla, who was Dr. Ledwig's daughter, but since Daniel possessed some black blood in his family, Dr. Ledwig wouldn't permit the marriage. Carla was pregnant, but Dr. Ledwig would rather have her abort the child than have his first granddaughter tainted with 'nigger' blood. Now he was dead, and naturally, since Daniel was at the scene of the crime, he was accused of the murder.

Joyce and Bobby Ashe have invited Deborah to bring her guitar and attend a get-together at their house. The Ashes have just signed onto a partnership with High Country Realty, which includes Norman Osborne. When Deborah arrives, she finds most of Cedar Gap's elite present, including Lucius Burke, the green-eyed District Attorney. Then during the festivities, Osborne disappears.

Deborah discovers that the twins have left college and opened a tea room instead – since cooking and baking is something at which they excel. They also insist that Daniel Freeman is innocent – and tell Deborah that Carla is a close friend. They get some of their male college friends to come in and complete the painting. Meanwhile Norman Osborne's body is found in the brush on the mountainside off the terrace of the Ashe house. Osborne has also been murdered.

When everything is cleared up and the murders solved, Judge Knott realizes she really is in love with Dwight, and he's in love with her - instead of the marriage being a sort of friendship pact.

Margaret Maron never fails to take us on a wild and wooly ride with Judge Deborah Knott's adventures. Growing up near Raleigh, North Carolina, Margaret Maron chose to return to her roots after living for a while in Brooklyn, New York. Her very first Deborah Knott book is listed among the Top 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century (selected by the Independent Booksellers
Association). Ms. Maron also writes the Sigrid Harald series.

Alan Paul Curtis

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