In SHOOTING AT LOONS, we follow Judge Deborah Knott to the state's lush Crystal Coast, where expensive yachts ride at anchor…and murders wash in on the "Down East" tide.


Asked to sit in for a hospitalized judge in gracious old Beaufort, Deborah hopes to spend a restful week at her cousin's nearby Harkers Island cottage; but her very first clamming expedition turns up the corpse of a well-known fisherman in the shallow waters. Discovering the body puts her right in the middle of the fight between the locals who have long made their living from the sea and the new tide of well-to-do "dingbatters": weekenders and land developers who view the coast as their personal playground and gold mine.


Deborah soon realizes that the centuries-old way of life in this isolated corner of the South is as endangered as loons and sea turtles, and the fisherman's murder is clearly tied to the coming changes. On the bench and off, she can feel the rage and fear and greed these changes arouse.


Even so, sipping her bourbon in the fresh salt air proves beneficial for Deborah's soul, and life at the beach takes a definite upswing when she meets a game warden who's hunting for loon poachers. Not until a second murder occurs and a lover from her past becomes a suspect does Deborah realize she's up to her own neck in intrigue-and dangerously close to a killer…

MARGARET MARON grew up on a farm near Raleigh, North Carolina, but for many years lived in Brooklyn, New York. When she returned to her North Carolina roots with her artist-husband, Joe, she began a series based on her own background. The first book, Bootlegger's Daughter, became a Washington Post best-seller that swept the major mystery awards for its year and is among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Later Deborah Knott novels Up Jumps the Devil, Storm Track, and Three-Day Town each won the Agatha Award for Best Novel. In 2008, Maron received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state's highest civilian honor. And in 2013, The Mystery Writers of America celebrated Maron's contributions to the mystery genre by naming her a Grand Master-an honor first bestowed on Agatha Christie. In 2016, she was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. To find out more about the author, you can visit MargaretMaron.com. Ebooks are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.