Last Lessons of Summer - Hardcover

Maron, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892967803 ISBN 13: 9780892967803

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 2003

Synopsis

In the suffocating heat of a Southern August, Amy Steadman, heir to a merchandising and publishing empire, has come to clean out the house of her murdered grandmother - and perhaps find some answers. Beneath her quiet, accommodating manner, a storm is brewing.
For here in this gracious home, Amy's own mother had committed suicide when her daughter was barely three years old. The tragedy put an end to her mother's turbulent marriage to Amy's father. But the secrets surrounding her mother's death live on. Sorting through her grandmother's things, Amy reflects on the parallels between her parents' relationship and the growing suspicions she has about her own husband, who may love her legacy more than he loves her.
As she rediscovers the tobacco-rich land where she spent her childhood summers, Amy meets relatives she never knew, and feels an unexpected emotional connection with the burly, knowing state investigator looking into her grandmother's murder. Suddenly, she begins to connect the dots between her troubled life and the heritage that shaped her. Yet the more she learns, the closer she comes to a murderous force who may be in her own family - one who will not hesitate to lie, deceive, or kill...

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Maron lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Reviews

Known best for her Deborah Knott novels (Slow Dollar, etc.) and her Sigrid Harald series (Fugitive Colors, etc.), Edgar-winner Maron has produced a standalone gem, set in North Carolina's Piedmont country, that focuses on a large matriarchal family. Amy Steadman, a toy company executive in New York City, returns to her Southern roots one steamy August after inheriting a fortune from her murdered maternal grandmother, Frances Barbour. Aided by Beth, her pouty younger half-sister, Amy sorts through furniture, books and other personal items in Grandma Frances's summer house, where Amy's mother, Maxie, committed suicide when Amy was three. Amy is determined to find out what was really behind her mother's death-and her grandmother's, too. Amy's many kinfolk, who pass in and out of the house, seem as kind and gentle as can be, but one of them is decidedly dangerous. Cousin Curt is poisoned with jimson weed seeds cooked into a jar of preserves, and another tainted jar turns up in Amy's refrigerator. Maron has a faultless ear for Southern speech, dotting her dialogue with regionalisms like "I might could have." A feast of clues and red herrings, the book builds to a climax that hits like a hot bullet blast. With oodles of characters to keep straight, readers will find the family tree at the start an essential guide.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is a stand-alone mystery from the author of the popular Judge Deborah Knott series. Fans of the Knott series will want to read Maron's latest, but this desultory sleuthing excursion might leave them disappointed. A New York City heiress to a toy company returns to North Carolina after her grandmother's death and, in the course of clearing the house, finds herself investigating her grandmother's murder and the suspicious death, years before, of her own mother. The writing, unfortunately, suggests an insipid teen romance. The heroine, in crisis, urges herself on with sayings from a beloved book about two stuffed animals: "What do you think, Pink? What'll we do, Blue?" Plot twists are delivered awkwardly, sometimes in artificial dialogue, as in, "Yet, three years later, she shot herself. Why, Dad?" The heroine doesn't so much solve the mystery as stand around while people decide to divulge secrets. Maron is a popular mystery author, and most library collections will need her complete works, but this one is sadly deficient. Connie Fletcher
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Edition details

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0892967803
• ISBN 13: 9780892967803
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288