Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron

In Sand Sharks, Judge Deborah Knott is attending a conference for district court judges. While there she discovers the body of one of her colleagues. She soon finds out that he isn't well liked making the suspect list very long. She wishes that her husband Dwight, a Sheriff's Deputy, was here to help, but he's off taking care of some family matters. Deborah has her work cut out for her if she hopes to solve this mystery and bring the culprit to justice.

I really enjoyed this book. A suspenseful story with interesting characters keeps the readers guessing until the end. This book is part of a long-standing series, but I think it can be enjoyed on its own. Having said that, I haven't read any of the other books and a few times I wish I had, especially when past events were discussed. I don't think I missed anything to do with this mystery, though.

As the book progressed, I gradually became more fond of the Judge Knott character. Not that I didn't start out liking her, it's just that the more I read about her, the more I wanted to read. I would have liked to see how she interacted with Dwight, but I'll see that when I read other books in the series. ;)

I particularly enjoyed the ancient quotes that preceded each chapter. They served as a nice introduction to each section. The legal jargon and conversations were less interesting and lost me a few times.

I've read lots of books where the point of view shifts around from character to character and from first person to third and I enjoyed them very much. In fact, I think it's an interesting approach. However, here it was introduced so late in the book (more than half way), it was jarring and seemed a little unnatural. I'm not sure why the author chose to write the story this way. I'm now curious to see if her other books were written similarly.

Recommended. I'd like to read more books from this series and perhaps some of Maron's other books.

For more information about this book, please visit the Hachette Book Group website.

For more information about the author, please visit Margaret Maron's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Hachette Book Group for this review copy.

Sand Sharks by Margaret Maron, Grand Central Publishing, ©2009. ISBN 9780446196116(Advance Reading Copy), 291p.