DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

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Deadly Pleasures
anyone, both at the official meetings and in bed. Still,
Deputy Dwight Bryant, husband of Judge Deborah Knott,
intends to investigate and find the killer. At the same time,
Judge Deborah is trying to figure out another mystery. Her
powerful, ex-bootlegger father, Kezzie Knott, seems unusually
interested in land titles and in a certain fundamentalist,
misogynist minister. Kezzie is even talking about
heaven!
As usual, in this 14 th book in the series, the murder
investigation shares equal time with the domestic life and
politics in a small North Carolina town. This time, Maron
makes the clash of the newly arrived city folk with the
longtime local resident farmers a major storyline. Conning
farmers out of farmland they have owned for ages and then
building shopping malls and tacky houses on a small lot is
a setup ripe for graft. The commission, of course, favors
the new development, which means more money and
more taxes. However, old Kezzie Knot may have his own
ideas about this.
Judge Deborah also has some amusing court
scenes featuring city folk who want to sue farmers because
their roosters crow too early and too loud. Another
complaint involves the Judge trying to tell newcomers their
children’s ATV’s are not welcome in the farmers’ planted
fields. And, unlike her husband, Deborah also wonders
about the obsessive concern Candy Bradshaw had for her
miniature dollhouse. Did it represent something she never
had?
Deborah Knott’s close-knit, extended family is
always another very appealing part of this series. The
family celebrations and frequent get-togethers offer comfort
reading to many Maron fans. Certainly, it would be
difficult to solve any local murders etc without involving the
Knott family network.
This cozy tale has a competent plotted mystery, a
surprise killer, and a warm-hearted, believable background
that takes you away from the really mean streets.
I’m spending as much of today writing as
possible, and I got to a place where I want
my character to put some music on. One of
my friends is the manager of a popular Scottish folk/
rock band so I thought I would use one of their
tracks. So I sent him a text asking for suggestions.
Unfortunately, I never told him what it was for. I sent
him a text that said “I need one of the band’s tracks
that would have a calming effect on a woman with
PMT (a.k.a. PMS) who has just been interviewed by
the police based on the word of her slimy exboyfriend.”
Seconds later I got a frantic phone call
asking me if I was OK and why I had been
interviewed by the police. Whoops!
-- Donna Moore, author of GO TO
Reviews
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DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins ($6.99,
Hard Case Crime, December, 2007). Rating: B
When Marcy Addwatter breaks into her husband’s
hotel room and shoots him and the blonde hooker he’s
with, her attorney calls on the services of private investigator
Michael Tree. That’s Ms. Michael Tree to you, as she
makes clear to everyone who gets it wrong. Ms. Tree’s
husband, also named Michael, was shot and killed on their
wedding night a year earlier. She comes to believe that
there may be a connection between those two killings and
a half-dozen others in between and that the connection
may lead back to her old enemy, the Muerta family. When
several attempts are made on her life and the lives of those
around her, she comes in, guns blazing, to find the
mastermind behind it all.
This is the first prose novel involving Ms. Tree.
However, it is based on the longest-running private-eye
comic book series of all time. That series, written by Collins
and drawn by Terry Beatty (who contributes a beautiful
cover here), ran for about sixty issues over fifteen years in
the 1980s and ‘90s. It was based on a “what if” proposition:
what if Mike Hammer had married Velma and he was
killed on their wedding night? Readers, as I was, of the
comic series will notice a few updates (a “contemporary reboot,”
to use Collins’ words) and a revised origin. But
essentially this is a new tale from Ms. Tree’s casebook.
The reader will feel the graphic novel origins of
this, at times, over-the-top, blood and thunder-shoot first
and ask questions later story. While it does not have the
reality-based feel of many of Collins’ novels, it is not
intended to achieve that result. It is exactly what it purports
to be: a hard-boiled tale told with considerable violence,
some sex, a solid back-story, a straightforward plot, and
some fine black humor. Of the four colors used in the old
comic book world, the main one on display here is red. It’s
fast, it’s furious, and it’s fun.
EASY INNOCENCE by Libby Fischer Hellmann
($24.95, Bleak House, April 2008). Rating: B Beautiful
and smart Sara Long is beaten to death during a hazing
ritual among high school girls. The suspect is a registered
sex offender whose fingerprints are found on the murder
weapon, a baseball bat. Her blood is on his clothes, as well.
When the State’s Attorney rushes the case toward trial, the
suspect’s sister hires former cop and recently minted
private investigator Georgia Davis to find evidence that
could exonerate her brother. What Davis discovers are
shocking secrets that threaten to expose the wealthy of
Chicago’s North Shore area to a nightmare they could