When Judge Deborah Knott travels to Wrightsville Beach for a summer conference for North Carolina District Court Judges, she stumbles upon the body of one of her colleagues. Meanwhile, Deborah's husband, Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, is in Virginia with his son, tying up loose ends left by the death of his first wife. When another judge is found murdered at the conference, it soon becomes evident that Deborah may be the killer's next target. Her relaxing trip to the seaside soon transforms into a harrowing experience, and she must summon all of her strength and investigative expertise to track down the culprit before she becomes the next victim. ( )

Synopsis: Deborah is going to a conference while Dwight and his son are gone to take care of disposing of the boy's mother's house. Deborah finds a dead body and is again embroiled in a murder. This time it's a judge who was not only dishonest but disingenuous, as well.
Review: This was fun to read and had a decent ending with the bad guy getting caught. ( )

About par for this series. Much about randy judges at a conference on the beach. Dwight's away and Deb'rah is actually asked to assist in the local investigation into a murder and an assault on two of the Jurist participants ( )

The Umpteenth entry in the Judge Deborah Knott series, and it was a pretty good one, set this time in a beach-y town where a semi-annual conference of judges is taking place. Unfortunately at least one of their Honors won't be around to attend the next one. Nobody is terribly upset that he's gone, but of course they need to find out who and why. I love Deborah, and I hope I'm not getting burned out on these, but I did have a few quibbles with this one. First of all, Maron broke a cardinal rule, at least twice---two little bits of business tucked into the story line gave me that "this is gonna matter later" feeling, but one was never mentioned again and the other just remained an ongoing bit of business with no significance whatsoever. You know that gun over the mantel in Act One has to be fired before the play is over, right Margaret? Oh, well... Second of all, I've never attended a big ole conference of any kind, but the district judges of North Carolina seemed to have an awful lot of unscheduled time on their hands at this one. Days of it, not just a free afternoon set aside for fun. I don't mean to put anyone off this series; it's been great reading, and I'm still keen to follow Deb'rah as she goes. If you read in order and get this far, you can make up your own mind anyway.
Reviewed August 2016 ( )

I enjoyed listening to this audiobook. I'm a sucker for books set in North Carolina! I'm not sure that this is my favorite Margaret Maron book, but is was a good listen over the last few days. I'd recommend it, especially for readers/listeners familiar with the Wilmington area. ( )