This my first try at a Colleton County series entry. My usual Maron's have been about NYPD's Lieutenant Sigrid Harald.

The opening page describes the shotgun slaying of Jake Honeycutt by someone he knows. His wife, Kate, decides to leave New York where have been living and move to the farm where was killed and the place she thought he really wished to be. She is only there a very short time when her 5 year old niece and her discover another body in the farm building she was converting to a studio. The dead man has a mole under his eye which leads to Jake's past in Vietnam.

Jake's death was originally thought to be an accident but with now the obvious murder of a fellow soldier from the war so soon after and the recent death of Jake's brother James in Mexico, was he murdered and why.

Kate shares the farm house she inherited from Jake with his uncle Lacey who obviously does not like her she cannot figure out why. Mysteries burglaries also add another element to the tension in the community. If I spot another of this series somewhere, I will definitely pick it up, ( )

Early days Maron but already an excellent storyteller. We are introduced to North Carolina and it's farm culture as well as some of the Judge Knott characters. ( )

This is the prequel for 'a book and its prequel' category for the 2016 Reading Challenge.
Synopsis: Kate and Jake are living an idyllic life, dividing their time between their apartment in New York and his farm in North Carolina. On one of their visits to the farm Jake is murdered, although it's deemed an accidental death. When Kate moves to the farm full time, she is faced with a disapproving uncle, an injured friend and neighbor, and a slightly unbalanced orphan. On her first day she is also met with a murdered man in the building that will be her studio. The mysteries continue to build until Kate's life is put in danger by the murderer who lives in the community.
Review: This is a well written book with lots of twists and turns to keep the reader interested. There is some information about the tobacco growing industry as well as the history of this area of North Carolina. The ending of the book raises many more questions that it answers. ( )

The author guest-blogged and mentioned this book, which preceded her Judge Deborah Knott series by a few years, but has the same setting and some of the characters who show up in the series. Kate Honeycutt, freshly widowed and expecting her late husband's baby, returns to his home farm in North Carolina to carry on her fabric design business and escape too many memories in New York City. Shortly after her arrival, she finds a body on the farm -- which turns out to be that of an old army buddy of her husband's. Investigations (partly carried out by Dwight Bryant, familiar to readers of the Judge Knott series) suggest that Kate's husband's death was not really due to a hunting accident but may have been murder. A thrilling conclusion includes the possibility of a new romance for Kate. Margaret Maron does the regional mystery as well or better than anyone writing now; the plethora of family and kinship references may be confusing for non-genealogists, but stick with it. Highly recommended. ( )