Margaret Maron

Margaret Maron (née Brown; August 25, 1938 – February 23, 2021) was an American writer, the author of award-winning mystery novels.

Biography Maron was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, and grew up in central Johnston County; she had also lived in Italy. She and her husband, artist Joe Maron, lived in Brooklyn before returning to her home state in 1972. Maron died of complications from a stroke.

Career

Writing Maron was the author of numerous short stories and more than 20 mystery novels. One series of novels features Sigrid Harald, a loner lieutenant in the NYPD whose policeman father was killed in the line of duty when she was a toddler (The Right Jack: a Sigrid Harald Mystery). Another series follows the adventures of Judge Deborah Knott, attorney and daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger.

Her works have been translated into a dozen languages and are on the reading lists of many courses in contemporary Southern literature, as well as Crime and Mystery literature courses.

Professional activities Maron was a founding member and past president of Sisters in Crime and of the American Crime Writers' League, and a director on the national board for Mystery Writers of America. She was a keynote speaker at the Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave in 2004.

Awards and recognition Maron received a number of awards for her work from the various awarding bodies of the mystery fiction genre.

Her first novel to receive recognition was Corpus Christmas, which was nominated for the 1989 Agatha Award and the 1990 Anthony Award in the "Best Novel" category. Her first short story to be met with critical acclaim was "Deborah's Judgment", which won the 1991 Agatha Award and was also nominated for the Anthony Award and the Macavity Award the following year for "Best Short-story".

Her novel Bootlegger's Daughter won the 1992 Agatha and the Anthony, Edgar and Macavity awards for "Best Novel" the following year. Additionally in 1993, Maron's short story "...That Married Dear Old Dad" was nominated for the "Best Short-story" Agatha and her novel Southern Discomfort was nominated for the "Best Novel" Agatha award. the latter being the same year that another of her short-stories, "The Dog That Didn't Bark", won the Agatha Award.

In 2006, North Carolina Governor Michael F. Easley named Maron to the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the state's highest civilian honor. Maron received an honorary doctorate from and gave the commencement address to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in May 2010, where she was a student for two years. In 2016, she was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.

Published works

Judge Deborah Knott series Bootlegger's Daughter, 1992 Southern Discomfort, 1993 Shooting at Loons, 1994 Up Jumps the Devil, 1996 Killer Market, 1997 Home Fires, 1998 Storm Track, 2000 Uncommon Clay, 2001 Slow Dollar, 2002 High Country Fall, 2004 Rituals of the Season, 2005 Winter's Child, 2006 Hard Row, 2007 Death’s Half-Acre, 2008 Sand Sharks, 2009 Christmas Mourning, 2010 Three-Day Town, 2011 (cross-over with Sigrid Harald) The Buzzard Table, 2012 Designated Daughters, 2014 Long Upon the Land, 2015

Sigrid Harald series One Coffee With, 1981 Death of a Butterfly, 1984 Death in Blue Folders, 1985 The Right Jack, 1987 Baby Doll Games, 1988 Corpus Christmas, 1989 Past Imperfect, 1991 Fugitive Colors, 1995 Take Out, 2017

Non-series Novels Bloody Kin, 1985 (prequel to Judge Deborah Knott series; First "Colleton County" book) Last Lessons of Summer, 2003

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