Last Lessons of Summer

Called “one of the most seamless Southern writers since Margaret Mitchell” by Publishers Weekly, Margaret Maron has won multiple awards and has received immense acclaim for her hugely popular Deborah Knott series. Now Maron introduces us to a new heroine who returns to her North Carolina roots to unearth the darkest secrets of her past. (This book was originally published in hardback by Mysterious Press in 2003.)

In the suffocating heat of a Southern August, Amy Steadman, heir to a merchandising and publishing empire, has come to lean out the house of her murdered grandmother—and perhaps find some answers. Beneath her quiet, accommodating manner, a storm is brewing.

For here in this gracious home, Amy’s own mother had committed suicide when her daughter was barely three years old. The tragedy put an end to her mother’s turbulent marriage to Amy’s father. But the secrets surrounding her mother’s death live on. Sorting through her grandmother’s things, Amy reflects on the parallels between her parents’ relationship and the growing suspicions she has about her own husband, who may love her legacy more than he loves her.

As she rediscovers the tobacco-rich land where she spent her childhood summers, Amy meets relatives she never knew, and feels an unexpected emotional connection with the burly, knowing state investigator looking into her grandmother’s murder. Suddenly, she begins to connect the dots between her troubled life and the heritage that shaped her. Yet the more she learns, the closer she comes to a murderous force who may be in her own family—one who will not hesitate to lie, deceive, or kill . . .