Deborah Knott was expected to be a conventional little girl and eventually a conventional woman, worshipped on a pedestal by a conventional husband.
Instead, she became an attorney, infiltrating the old boy network that still rules the tobacco country of Colleton County, North Carolina. Some say her success is a sign of the New South, but no one knows better than she the power of the past—her … past—her family’s long history in the area is a major asset in her campaign for district judge. Then again, as the strong-willed daughter of Kezzie Knott—notorious bootlegger, ex-con, and political string-puller—history is also one of her greatest problems.
But it’s an episode from the more recent past that threatens to derail her campaign. As a teen, Deborah used to babysit little Gayle Whitehead for her mother, Janie. One rainy spring day eighteen years ago, both mother and daughter disappeared. When they were found three days later Gayle was dehydrated, dirty, and hungry…and Janie was dead. The unsolved murder became a local legend and an enigma that continues to haunt Gayle, who now begs Deborah to investigate.
With no real faith in her investigative skills, Deborah asks a variety of questions on her campaign tour of the county’s rallies—and soon her attention is distracted from the hurly-burly of politics by troubling new evidence. Deborah now faces the realization that the disadvantages of being the single female candidate in a southern judgeship race, and even the disadvantages of being Kezzie Knott’s daughter, are nothing in comparison to posing a threat to a successful murderer…
Winner of the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity awards for Best Novel, “Bootlegger’s Daughter” was the first full-length novel featuring Deborah Knott.
ABOUT MARGARET MARON
Born and bred in North Carolina where the piedmont meets the sandhills, I grew up on a modest two-mule tobacco farm that has been in the family for over a hundred years. Tobacco is no longer grown on the farm, but the memories linger — the singing, the laughter, the gossip that went on at the bench as those rank green leaves came from the field, the bliss of an icy cold drink bottle pressed to a hot sweaty face, getting up at dawn to help “take out” a barn, the sweet smell of soft golden leaves as they’re being readied for auction. Working in tobacco is one of those life experiences I’m glad to have had. I’m even gladder that it’s something I’ll never have to do again.
After high school came two years of college until a summer job at the Pentagon led to marriage, a tour of duty in Italy, then several years in my husband’s native Brooklyn. I had always loved writing and for the first few years, wrote nothing but short stories and very bad poetry. (The legendary Ruth Cavin of St. Martin’s Press once characterized my verses as “doggerel. But inspired doggerel.”)
Eventually, I backed into writing novels about NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald, mysteries set against the New York City art world. But love of my native state and a desire to write out of current experiences led to the creation of District Court Judge Deborah Knott, the opinionated daughter of a crusty old ex-bootlegger and youngest sibling of eleven older brothers. (I was one of only three, so no, I’m not writing about my own family.)
We’ve been back on a corner of the family land for many years now. My city-born husband discovered he prefers goldfinches, rabbits, and the occasional quiet deer to yellow cabs, concrete, and a city that never sleeps. A son, a daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters are icing on our cake.
(Cover graphic by Blue Moon Graphics)
more
If you have not read this book or the series, your missing out. I enjoyed this who did it? book. I have read all of the other books in the Deborah Knott series. The family tree is interesting and I love the southern North Carolina setting and reading about some of the ‘gold ole’ boy’ things that still occur today. The characters are warm and fun to spend time with, never a dull moment
Some of the language wasn’t for me but I pushed through those parts and I found I really enjoyed it. The cold case kidnapping and murder was what drew me to the book in the first place but I found the whole story line addicting. What would happen with the election?, Was Deborah going to get a love interest? and who was the killer?! See addicting! The reveal was HOLY-MOLY totally didn’t see THAT coming! So I’m going to stick with this series for now and see what can possibly happen next.
Strongly recommend Booklegger’s Daughter by Margaret Maron, the first book in her series centered around a rural North Carolina female judge – grounded stories, gently presented chraracters in unusual mystery situations. A pleasure to read and reread from the especially when the outside world is too frenetic. Sadly we lost Margaret this year but the Bootlegger’s daughter-turned-judge lives on through all 23 books.
A cold case has haunted the tobacco country of Colleton County, North Carolina in Bootlegger’s Daughter, a novel that is the first in the Deborah Knott series by Margaret Maron.
Eighteen years ago a mother and baby daughter disappeared. Found three days later, the baby survived but her mother was already dead. This unsolved murder became a local legend that haunted residents, including baby Gayle as she grew up. Now an adult, Gayle has hired attorney Deborah Knott to investigate so her mother can finally rest in peace with her killer finally caught, and Gayle hopes she can find some kind of peace in that closure as well.
In the midst of all her work, Deborah follows her passion for fair court sentencing that represents her commitment, that “punishment is supposed to deter a person from doing it again, not crush his spirit.” A particularly ruthless decree in a court case that Deborah watched while she waited for her client’s case to start, was the spark that began the fire of her own campaign for District Judge.
The excitement of the primaries and then the election pulses through the pages. Campaigning with her family’s long history is sometimes an asset, and sometimes a liability. She is, after all, the strong-willed daughter of Kezzie Knott – notorious bootlegger, ex-con, and political string-puller. As this investigation continues, and as the campaign trail heats up, Deborah finds herself fully immersed in intrigue, debate and the dangers of posing a threat to a murderer.
Margaret Maron writes with an insider’s knowledge, in her Deborah Knott series, of the legacy of Southern culture – the land, the history, the issues of race, family secrets and often-troubled inheritance. The characters she creates are touching and compelling. Amidst some thoughtful, dire, and action packed issues handled in her books, there’s also some playfulness and even wistfulness in some of the characters.
Born and raised in North Carolina, Maron is a highly-regarded and awarded mystery writer. She’s won the Agatha Award for her urban New York series featuring police detective Sigrid Harald, and the Edgar Award for Best Novel for Bootlegger’s Daughter. She’s also won the renowned Anthony and also the Macavity Awards. Enjoy her 34 novels and two collections of short stories. A long-standing member of the Mystery Writers of America, she’s also held office as President of the Sisters in Crime organization. Bootlegger’s Daughter was chosen as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers.
And if you want to hear more from the author listen on YouTube to Kendall & Cooper Talk Mysteries with Margaret Maron.
I love the Deborah Knott series. I laugh out loud at so much of it. I’ve read all of them in this series. Since I’m a little familiar with the setting, I enjoy the stories of the locals and the localities.
The main character and her family are just flat out funny. Ms. Maron is good at realizing that the reader may have trouble keeping them all straight and helps us along.
The first – and best – of her Deborah Knott books.
Great series.
In my teens I discovered Ross Macdonald, an author whom I instantly admired and whose works I began accumulating. Among them was THE WYCHERLY WOMAN. But after starting to read it, I quit after three or four chapters, thinking it a work atypically and unaccountably dull from this author, but also figuring that I’d give it another shot sometime in the future. The future was about a year or so later. That time around the novel proved as irresistible as Macdonald’s previous Lew Archer stories, long and short, had been, and I devoured it. The experience made me realize that mood and expectation almost invariably determine how I respond to reading matter. I’m guessing that many other readers, likely a majority, react the same way, whether to leisure or required material.
“Okay, but this isn’t a review of THE WYCHERLY WOMAN,” you say; “it concerns BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER. What’s the connection?”
BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER is the first in a series of mystery novels starring first-person narrator Deborah Knott, the partner of a small law firm in the town of Dobbs, North Carolina, located in the fictional county of Colleton. The book was enthusiastically recommended to me years ago by a former college English instructor who at one point worked for a used-book store and who knew I’m a mystery fan. I bought a paperback copy but, until just recently as of this writing (early August 2017), it languished on a shelf.
The novel’s basic premise concerns Deborah Knott being approached by eighteen-year-old Gayle Whitehead, for whom she babysat when Gayle was a child, and asked to look into the brutal murder of Gayle’s mother Janie when Gayle was three months old. My problem with it is that although this request occurs fairly early in the story, it isn’t until halfway or a little further through that Deborah’s investigation really begins. In between she’s campaigning for a local judgeship. Amid descriptions of her activities at various political rallies, the reader is introduced to a number of personalities who are competing for the same position as well as to various residents of Dobbs and surrounding communities, relatively few of whom have anything to do with the mystery. This is a novel which could benefit from a cast-of-characters listxadxadxadxadxadxad, one confined to people essential to the crux of the story.
Just prior to Chapter Nine, I debated about whether to continue reading or quit. As this review makes obvious, I kept going, which led to a satisfying,xad albeit somewhat predictable conclusion, though the trip was a bit more sluggish than I’d have liked. But that’s where mood and expectation come into play. I was in the mood for a novel in which the detection element was predominant, and my expectation was that BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER would deliver one longer than that in a novelette.
The first four pages of the Warner Books/Mysterious Press paperback edition contain brief enthusiastic excerpts from a multitude of newspaper and author blurbs, and other reviews. Several of them praise the novel by alluding to authors like Faulkner, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor and Harper Lee, as well as to mystery writers P.D. James, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton. I must reluctantly admit to not having read the mystery writers. As far as the others are concerned, I can sort of understand *why* reviewers mentioned them, but based on this work I wouldn’t put Margaret Maron in quite the same league. Nevertheless, she does a very good job of conveying a sense of character, place, and cultural climate in lucid prose.
With the admonition that there are a few (and I mean *only* a few) instances of the N-word and the F-bomb, which might discourage some from reading it, I can recommend BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER to those expecting xadand being in the mood forxad a tale which combines modern realistic mystery with a mainstream/literary approach.
© 2017 Barry Ergang