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Margaret Maron´s New York Times bestselling mystery series featuring Judge Deborah Knott comes to a heartwarming conclusion... LONG UPON THE LAND On a quiet August morning, Judge Deborah Knott´s father, Kezzie, discovers a dead body on his farm. Investigating the crime, Deborah´s husband, Sheriff´s Deputy Dwight Bryant, soon uncovers a long-simmering hostility between Kezzie and the slain man over a land dispute, casting suspicion on the Knott family. Meanwhile, Deborah receives a cigarette lighter that once belonged to her mother, which makes her curious about her parents. How did they meet? And how could a prominent attorney´s daughter marry the uneducated son of a moonshiner? Why are Deborah´s brothers so evasive about the dead man? Is the murder linked to Kezzie´s illegal whiskey business? And could his courtship of Deborah´s mother have something to do with the bad blood between the two families? Deborah´s loyalties are torn as she tries to clear her family from suspicion without hampering Dwight´s investigation.

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Praise for DESIGNATED DAUGHTERS:

In DESIGNATED DAUGHTERS, practically the whole clan shows up at the hospice where Aunt Rachel has interrupted the process of dying to deliver a rambling account of all the things that have been on her wandering mind. It´s quite a lovely deathbed aria, narrated in the honeyed accents of the region. But someone must have feared Aunt Rachel might divulge a buried secret because that someone creeps into her room and smothers her with a pillow.

Maron knows how to adorn a solid murder mystery with plenty of ancillary entertainments. But her broader theme involves the way families flourish when they work together for the common good. While there are charming scenes of group projects like building a pond shed and assembling a bluegrass band, the clan members Maron really cherishes are those who devote themselves to caring for the elders of the family. Living saints they are, every last one of them.
-New York Times Book Review

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Margaret Maron grew up on a farm near Raleigh and lived in Brooklyn for many years. Returning to her North Carolina roots prompted Margaret to write a series based on her own background, the first of which, Bootlegger´s Daughter , was a Washington Post bestseller and swept the major mystery awards for 1993.

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