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    Uncommon Clay
    Uncommon Clay
    Uncommon Clay
    Audiobook8 hours

    Uncommon Clay

    Written by Margaret Maron

    Narrated by C.J. Critt

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Margaret Maron, winner of the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Awards, has reached renowned success with the Deborah Knott Mystery series. Uncommon Clay delves into the intriguing world of the Nordans, a deep-rooted family of talented yet cursed North Carolina potters. Judge Knott is filling in for another judge who suffered a mild stroke. When she decrees that the divorcing Nordan couple split their valuable earthenware collection, the husband winds up dead--in his own kiln! Many people have motives and the clay wheel swirls with suspects. C.J. Critt's narration heightens the suspense in this family's story of long-time grudges, murder, unbearable pain, and loss. This exciting novel is as rich as the red clay pottery of North Carolina.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 11, 2008
    ISBN9781449800468
    Uncommon Clay

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    Reviews for Uncommon Clay

    4/5

    114 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      In the red clay country of Seagrove, North Carolina, Judge Deborah Knott oversees the distribution of property in the bitter divorce between two members of the Nordan clan, a dynasty of skilled potters long cursed by suicide and scandal. After a gruesome act of violence suddenly strikes the homestead, Judge Knott must stop a killer who will stop at nothing to continue a dark history of family secrets, old sins, and new blood.
    • 4/5
      Synopsis: Set in the small town of Seagrove, Deborah has been assigned to adjudicate the property settlement of a divorce between two very good potters. Just before everything is finished, the husband is pushed into a kiln. At his funeral, it's discovered that there is an additional grandson who could inherit the business; this is the illegitimate child of the other dead son. The question becomes who is killing the members of this potter family, and why.Review: Lots of twists in this one, making it interesting.
    • 4/5
      In this episode of NC Culture and History, we examine the worlds of pots and potters. Maron continues her delightful insights into present and historic North Carolina so that Judge Deb'rah can find bodies and solve their murders. Always a good story and frequently as in this one, a neat twist at the end.
    • 4/5
      Ah, another family with drama, though it's definitely much deadlier drama than the Knott family has.The whole mystery is basically the story of the Hitchcock and Norden families. They're very intertwined, grew up together, all that jazz. They're also all various levels of potters. The story even starts out with everyone alive. Then Deborah finds one of the characters dead in a kiln and the mystery gets weirder and weirder from there.It was a-- let's say an 'Away' Deborah Knott mystery instead of a 'Home' one, so very little Dwight, although we did see a bit of Kidd.One thing I like about her novels, and as Maron writes more novels and acquires more characters it happens more often, I like how she weaves characters that the reader met in previous books into future books (and generally even if you don't recognize the character right away she gives very good cues to who they are in the story).
    • 3/5
      All in all, another good Margaret Maron story. Missed Colleton County, but enjoyed the change of setting in Seagrove, among the pottery.
    • 4/5
      Judge Deborah Knott is assigned to do some judicial work in another jurisdiction when their judge suffers a slight stroke. The first case is a divorce settlement of a local potter, the second a divorce case of attorneys. The pottery and the people involved gets very complicated very quickly and Deborah is quickly up to her neck in dead bodies, multiple suspects and no idea who is actually trying to kill people.

      This is such a good series, the people seem so real and so *true* that you can't help like them, or hate them or have some sort of reaction to them. Just feeling indifferent isn't possible.

      I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, and hope that Ms. Maron keeps right on writing about Deborah and her wacky extended family, not to mention the wacky cases that involve Deborah.

    • 5/5
      Great Deborah Knott Mystery book!
    • 4/5
      This is book 8 in the Judge Deborah Knott series. Deborah is sent to the part of NC where they have good red clay, and make pottery. The mystery is around the murders in a family of famous potters. The husband and wife are divorcing, and Deborah has been sent to oversee the distribution of assets. The divorce is not amicable, and the husband is found stuffed into his running kiln on the afternoon when the final division will take place. He is not the only one to die ...The information on the pots and pot making in the Seagrove, NC area is interesting and woven well into the story. Throughout the books Maron also brings up the changes that outsiders and prosperity are bringing to NC. She focuses on the losses in the lives of the people and their traditions, that the rush for money has brought. Running through the books is also the impact of politicians who don't balance development and tradition, and who acquiesce to the special interests with their money and empty promises. Deborah is getting over the humiliating and humorous (for the reader) break up with her latest beau. Her interactions with her friends and family are wonderful, as is the setting. Again its not hardcore mystery, but I just loved it.
    • 5/5
      8th in the Judge Deborah Knott series set in North Carolina.Deborah’s off again, sitting in for another judge, this time in the heart of the potting country in the piedmont area of North Carolina. It’s more of a flight from the pain of breaking up with Kidd Chapin after she discovers, in a very funny scene, that Kidd has gotten back together again with his ex-wife.Once in Seagrove, she finds that judicial life doesn’t change much; she’s there primarily to hear two property settlement cases, one of which involves a couple who are potters, whose breakup is acrimonious. In an attempt to settle the division of a valuable collection of early pottery, Deborah asks the couple to start the property division at the pottery itself. The husband doesn’t show—mostly because he has been murdered in one of his own kilns.This is an excellent story that highlights the potting crafts industry, one of the relatively few cottage industries left in the US. Maron does a much better job than in Killer Marketof intertwining the murder plot with a fascinating look at a particular industry; Killer Market seemed to be not much more than a vehicle for promoting the furniture industry and its half-yearly sales in High Point, N.C. This book illustrates the practicality of potters, who balance tradition with innovation and the need to make a living. It’s quite a contrast with the furniture industry, with its high-tech robotic machines that duplicate dents, wormholes and other oddities of antique furniture in order to produce identical copies that are valued in their own right. In the potting trade, innovations are gas-fired or electric kilns. Maron also does an excellent job, through characters in the plot, of exposing the snobbishness of academics and other who rail at the loss of the more traditional ways of firing. As she has one potter saying, “Don’t see the horse and buggy you came in on”. The plot is a good if straightforward one, using as a story element the dangers of the heavy metals, especially lead, that used to be used in glazes for foodware until the adverse health effects were realized.As usual, her writing style is perfectly suited to her characters and area. She does not wear out Deborah, who continues to evolve as a character and for whom Maron provides diverse situations to keep interest high.Another fine installment in an excellent series. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      This is one of the less good books in the series. The plot was tedious & the mystery was obvious.
    • 4/5
      In the eighth book in the Judge Deborah Knott series, Ms Maron employs spare prose and the languid language of the Carolina Piedmont to tell an exceptionally gripping story of hate, jealousy and murder.The famous Nordan family, who live in an area of North Carolina known for its pottery, is being torn apart by a bitter divorce betweeen two well known potters. Judge Deborah Knotts is called in to oversee distribution of the marital property, but her work is interrupted by the murder of one of the disputants, James Lucas Nordan, son of Amos Nordan, patriarch of the family. Amos rules over his clan with an iron fist and causes jealousy and infighting when he keeps changing his will as to who will inherit the business. Several people seem to have a motive for murder, and soon other murders occur. Amidst a beautifully evoked flowering spring countryside, Deborah pursues the murderer with her usual keen eye and common sense. Maron's mastery of jurisprudence, her well-researched depiction of the potting world but especially her sensitive portrayal of human relationships raise this novel far above the ordinary run of mysteries.UNCOMMON CLAY took all four top mystery awards the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha and the Macavity.
    • 5/5
      The Nordan family has problems. The death of three of them in rather gruesome ways is the least of it. The head of the family Amos Nordan is a cave man in his thinking, about woman, and the government interfering with his business, and its causing the rest of the family nothing but trouble. Lucky for the readers there Judge Deborah Knott, with her easy and funny look on life, and of course the need to stick her noise into places it shouldn't be, but than what kind of Judge would she be if she didn't do thank. In the end all the string will be neatly tied, and of course the killer will get what's coming to um. Margaret Maron really writes a great mystery. The book is fun to read, and the killer isn't all that obvious. Her characters truly come to life within these pages. This is the first of her books I have read, but it will not be last. If you are fan of southern mysteries, with real woman characters, you'll love this book. I can also recommend this book highly to fans of Sharon McCrumb, another great southern mystery writer.