Margaret Maron

Margaret Maron was an American mystery novelist best known for two series: the Deborah Knott series, featuring a North Carolina judge, and the Lieutenant Sigrid Harald series, set in New York City. She won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Macavity awards in the same year (1993) for Bootlegger's Daughter, an achievement almost unparalleled in mystery fiction. Maron was born in Johnston County, North Carolina, and her deep roots in the American South infused her Deborah Knott novels with an authentic sense of region, family, and legal tradition. She often explored rural North Carolina life, the tobacco culture of her childhood, and the changing social fabric of the modern South. She served as president of Sisters in Crime and the Mystery Writers of America. Her later novels in the Deborah Knott series, including Three-Day Town (Agatha winner 2011) and Long Upon the Land (Agatha winner 2015), continued to earn critical and popular acclaim. Maron was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 2013. She passed away in 2021.