Christmas Mourning / Margaret Maron

Christmas mourning by Margaret Maron (the 16th Deborah Knott mystery). 289 p.

Deborah is a judge in Colleton County, North Carolina, where she grew up the youngest child (and only girl) of 12. She's surrounded by family--many of her brothers, their children, her elderly father, and her (fairly new) husband Dwight, a sheriff's deputy, and his family, including his son. Like many long-running series, the continuity of characters and setting is the main delight of the books. I enjoy Deborah's voice--she's snarky, and no pushover, but her background is so different from mine that it's interesting for me to visit a member of a large, loud, close family whose "home place" farm is still the family's heart. I liked this book more than some other recent entries in the series; Deborah does most of the narration, and the third-person section is mostly from the point of view of Dwight, who's one of my favorite characters. The plot plays to the strength of the setting, with the intricate web of relationships amongst the long-time residents leading to the solution of the mysteries surrounding four deaths. As often with Maron's books, family is at the heart of everything.