A Novel Idea Book Suggestions-6/13/23

4.7 stars

Deborah Knott, an attorney attempting to infiltrate the old boy network of tobacco country by running for district judge, is distracted from the race, and almost eliminated, when she finds new evidence to an old small-town murder.

4.6 stars

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.

4.8 stars

"Attorney Clayton Gladwell keeps 'special' cases in blue folders that only he can access, but when Gladwell announces his impending retirement, someone decides that Blue Folder secrets aren't safe unless everyone connected to them is dead. From a long-dead movie star, the owner of a trendy art gallery, and an Algonquin Roundtable personality to a senile resident in a nursing home and a broken-down cleaning woman, Lt. Harald must figure out who hated...

3.9 stars

When Deborah Knott's terminally ill aunt, Rachel, is found smothered to death in her bed at a hospice center, all of her Colleton County kith and kin are shocked. Who kills a dying woman? As Deborah and her husband, Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, try to find Rachel's killer, they cross paths with the Designated Daughters, a support group for caregivers, not all of whom are women. Rachel's flamboyant daughter, Sally, is a member, and when a con artist...

4.7 stars

Taking an out-of-town assignment to put distance between herself and her hyper-reactive family, recently engaged judge Deborah Knott finds her peaceful break disrupted by a local murder that she becomes determined to solve.

5 stars

Sent to High Point, North Carolina, to substitute for a vacationing colleague, Deborah finds there is no room at the inn. Or anywhere else for that matter. The International Home Furnishings Market has taken over the town and all the hotels. All Deborah wants is a bed for the night, not thousands of living room suites and dining room ensembles. And the last thing she needs is murder. A chilling misadventure begins when she is befriended by Mrs. Jernigan,...

4.8 stars

Asked to sit in for a hospitalized judge in gracious old Beaufort, Deborah hopes to spend a restful week at her cousin's nearby Harkers Island cottage; but her very first clamming expedition turns up the corpse of a well-known fisherman in the shallow waters. Discovering the body puts her right in the middle of the fight between the locals who have long made their living from the sea and the new tide of well-to-do "dingbatters" weekenders and land...

4.5 stars

Deborah Knott may have lost the district election, but a bigoted judge's sudden death--and some old-fashioned political horse trading--have won her a governor's appointment. True to Southern form, her swearing-in is followed by a raucous reception that brings out every elderly aunt and cousin in the county. Unfortunately, Lu Bingham, the force behind WomenAid, is at the reception, too. Not only has she come to collect the leftovers for her daycare...

4.6 stars

NYPD Detective Sigrid Harald 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.

4.3 stars

When truck driver and childhood neighbor Dallas Stancil is shot and killed in his own backyard, Deborah figures she owes his memory at least the respectful ritual of taking his widow one of her Aunt Zell's best chicken casseroles. Mistake Number One. Dallas wasn't rich, but with development eating up the farms and forests of North Carolina, his land is suddenly worth a fortune. His trashy, chain-smoking third wife and grown stepchildren are all too...