One place the two Souths--black and white--meet is in Judge Deborah Knott's courtroom. From the pretty yet aggressive D.A., who requests harsh sentences for her fellow African-Americans, to the three white teens caught desecrating a family graveyard with hate slogans, racial bias still tries the soul and tests the sense of justice in Colleton County, North Carolina.

Busy with her reelection campaign and building a new house on land that has been in her family for generations, Deborah has both deep roots and a professional stake in her community. She's shaken when her nephew A.K. is arrested with a group of vandalizing teens at a local cemetery. Torn between her duty as a judge and her loyalty to her large, close-knit family, Deborah has to decide how far she can go to protect him.

Then the first black church burns.

Determined to investigate the arson in which A.K. has become a suspect, Deborah Knott is quickly swept into the dark undercurrents of prejudice, pain, and betrayal in this rural Southern county. Add to this the sudden arrival of a 1970s black activist turned public figure, the emerging secrets of an angry young woman, and the burning of two more churches, and Deborah faces a crisis that will challenge her political acumen, her detective skills, and her core beliefs.

The sins of the past return to forever change the present in Margaret Maron's most riveting, emotionally moving novel to date, a mystery that invokes color and kinship--and the unbreakable bonds of love.

1

Fire cleanses but the Blood of the Lamb
Washes whiter than snow

-- Jones Chapel

Flames are already jetting through one side of the roof. Daddy brakes sharply and pulls his old Chevy pickup right in behind Rudy Peacock. Before he can switch off the truck, I have the door open and am running towards the fire.

The West Colleton volunteer fire truck swings in next to that blazing corner and half a dozen men swarm to unreel the hose connected to its water tank. No water mains or fire hydrants this far out in the country. I doubt if there's even a garden hose. Most buildings this old and this poor, the best you can expect in the way of on-site water is probably a rusty old hand pump out back.

No electric pump and nothing much else electric, judging by the outdated transformer on the light pole and the single thin line that runs down to the small one-room structure where flames leap up against the darkening sky. Where it started, no doubt. Frayed wires. A power surge or maybe a short. The wiring here probably hasn't been inspected since it was installed fifty or sixty years ago.

Typical rural complicity. Long as you pay your bills and no one complains, Carolina Power and Light won't bother you. But get cut off for letting your payments lapse, and they'll make you bring your wiring up to code before turning the power back on.

All this and more rushes subliminally through my mind as I race for the open front door.

Daddy hollers for me to stop, to come back, and I hear one of the firemen call, "Reckon they's still any gas in them old tanks?" Then I'm through the door and into the smoke-filled room.

Someone in protective gear pushes past me with a rough-hewn cross. "Get out!" he yells, but a young, barrel-shaped man gestures urgently from across the smoky room. "The Bible! Grab the Bible!"

I snatch up the big open book and the white lace runner beneath it just as he hoists the wooden pulpit, slings it over his shoulder and heads for the door. Two more men try to move a monstrous upright piano but they can't get the casters to roll and the thing's too heavy for them to pick it up.

Flames lick the exposed rafters only nine or ten feet above our heads and sparks shower down on us, stinging my bare arms. One of the pews in the middle of the room is burning like a solitary bonfire, although the most intense heat radiates from the corner. Smoke chokes me, the skin on my face feels tight and hot, and my eyes are streaming as I look around for something else to save. Adrenaline pumping, I scoop up a stack of paperback hymn books. Some old-fashioned hand fans are heaped together at the end of one pew and I pile as many as I can on top of the hymnals and the pulpit Bible, then stumble towards the door and out into the humid night air as a burning rafter crashes somewhere behind me.

Daddy breaks free of restraining hands and grabs for some of the fans that are sliding out of my control.

"Don't you never do nothing like that again as long as you live," he says angrily as I cough and cough and try to clear my lungs. His hand is rough as he brushes at my hair where sparks have singed it. "You hear me, girl? I'm talking to you!"

"I'm okay," I gasp between coughs. "Honest."

But then I look back at the burning structure, and like Lot's wife, I am struck dumb and motionless.

 

"Don't let the down-home charms of Margaret Maron's Southern mysteries con you with their coziness. Behind their honeyed accents, the friendly in Home Fires have plenty of secrets to hide and grudges to settle."

 

"By creating characters who are not caricatures, presenting real social issues and keeping the tension high, Maron has produced one of 1998's finest mysteries."

 

"Maron's whodunit plot is challenging, but it's her unconventional characters, colorful family histories, and an unblinking, though certainly affectionate, view of the contemporary South that distinguish this well-crafted novel."

 

"Deborah (Knott) is a wholly engaging blend of country comfort and New South sophistication."

 

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 and went on to write Bootlegger's Daughter, a Washington Post bestseller and winner of the major mystery awards for 1993. Her next Deborah Knott novel, Southern Discomfort, was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Novel. Shooting at Loons, which followed, received Agatha and Anthony Award nominations; and Up Jumps the Devil won the Agatha for Best Novel of 1996.

 

Home Fires by Margaret Maron
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