"Margaret Maron is back with a new mystery featuring her critically acclaimed sleuth Judge Deborah Knott"--Provided by publisher.

Margaret Maron is The New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Deborah Knott series of southern mysteries, including the novels Uncommon Clay and Slow Dollar. She has won the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, and American Mystery Awards. In a rare departure from the Knott series, Maron ratchets up the suspense in the dark and captivating stand-alone mystery, Last Lessons of Summer. Amy Stedman is the young heiress of a prosperous children's...

Judge Deborah Knott, already on edge as a hurricane approaches her Colleton County community, unwittingly becomes involved in a storm of domestic unrest, some of which leads to murder.

Publishers Weekly declares that the "leaves of autumn are in full splendor, and so is Maron's talent in her 10th Deborah Knott adventure." Judge Knott is finally ready to marry her long-time friend Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant and settle down-or is she? She jumps at a chance to fill in for a judge in the high country of North Carolina. But ugly murder haunts the beauty of the Smoky Mountains.

Margaret Maron, winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Awards, has reached renowned success with the Deborah Knott Mystery series. Uncommon Clay delves into the intriguing world of the Nordans, a deep-rooted family of talented yet cursed North Carolina potters. Judge Knott is filling in for another judge who suffered a mild stroke. When she decrees that the divorcing Nordan couple split their valuable earthenware collection, the husband...

When former neighbor Dallas Stancil is murdered, Judge Deborah Knott rushes to offer condolences to the grieving widow, not realizing that Cherry Lou, Dallas's third wife, set up the killing in order to cash in on a developer's offer of big money for her husband's backwoods land.

The desecration of a cemetery, a church burning, and the arrival of a prominent African-American activist ignite racial tensions in Colleton County, North Carolina; Judge Deborah Knott sets out to find the perpetrators and bring some peace to the county.

"As Judge Deborah Knott presides over a case involving a barroom brawl, it becomes clear that deep resentments over race, class, and illegal immigration are simmering just below the surface in the North Carolina countryside"--Provided by publisher.

North Carolina judge Deborah Knott's anxiety over her upcoming Christmas wedding to Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant is compounded by the murder of a colleague, her involvement in helping students research the innocence of a death-row prisoner, ongoing renovations to her house, and worries over how to connect with her soon-to-be stepson.