A mysterious ornithologist staying at Mrs. Lattimore's Victorian home and doing research on Southern vultures seems familiar to Judge Deborah Knott and Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, especially after a murderer strikes.

"When Judge Deborah Knott is summoned to her ailing Aunt Rachel's bedside, she assumes the worst. Thankfully when she arrives at the hospice center she learns that Rachel hasn't passed; in fact, the dying woman is awake. Surrounded by her children, her extended family, and what seems like half of Colleton County, a semi-conscious Rachel breaks weeks of pained silence with snippets of stories as randomly pieced together as a well-worn patchwork quilt....

North Carolina judge Deborah Knott and her husband Deputy Dwight Bryant are looking forward to Christmas until a traffic fatality turns out not to be an accident.

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....

"Judge Deborah Knott, only days away from her wedding to Sheriff Deputy Dwight Bryant, investigates another murder"--Provided by the publisher.

Sigrid is still reeling from the untimely death of her lover, acclaimed painter Oscar Nauman, when she is called to investigate the deaths of two homeless men in the West Village. The police at first assume an overdose, until they realize that one of the men shows no signs of drug use. Then when containers of poisoned takeout food are found nearby, Sigrid's case is suddenly much more complicated. As Sigrid investigates, she uncovers an intriguing...

With friends and family over-reacting to her announcement that she plans to marry Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, Judge Deborah Knott gratefully seizes the opportunity to put a five-hour drive between herself and Colleton County when the Chief District Court Judge offers her a week on the bench in Cedar Gap. It is early autumn, leaves are turning, and summer residents are preparing to close up their mountain "cabins" (palatial houses perched atop...

"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.

Home Fires tackles one of the contemporary South's most burning issues. When racial tension erupts in the sleepy community of Colleton County, North Carolina, Deborah is caught off guard. She is happily tending her own home fires: her simmering romance with Kidd Chapin, the house she's building on her family's land, and her campaign for reelection as district judge. But then the first black church is burned, and all of Deborah's alarms go off. Narrator...

The Deborah Knott mysteries have won a devoted following, as well as Edgar, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity awards. Readers across the country love Judge Knott's new southern woman's sensibilities and the intelligence she uses to unravel the snarled cases that come her way. Killer Market takes the quintessential steel magnolia to the hub of North Carolina's massive furniture industry. Although she's there to sub for a fellow judge, Deborah soon gets...