Books like Up jumps the Devil by Margaret Maron

Bill Bryson humorously chronicles a two–person hike along the Appalachian Trail, mixing lively anecdotes with insightful looks at its history, ecology, and the people who live along the route.

A charming and clever women detective, Precious Ramotswe, solves mysteries in Botswana's small town of Midsomin, South Africa, from 1986 to 1997, facing dangers and love in the process. The novel is beloved by readers worldwide for its clever dialogue and characters who are as flawed as the rest of us. The book is a bestseller and has been translated into 45 languages, including Polish, German, and Japanese, among others. It was also voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.

Set in 1950s rural Arkansas, John Grisham’s debut novel follows seven‑year‑old Luke Chandler as he works the cotton fields with Mexican and hilltop neighbors, confronting racial tension, forbidden romance and a murder that force him to grow up early.

Public defender Kendall Deaton in Prosper, South Carolina, must flee after uncovering a town secret and confronting her powerful husband, while protecting her baby and navigating a treacherous escape amid threats to her life and the truth she holds.

When Rachel Knott’s hospice death raises questions, detective Deborah Knott and her husband investigate a killer among Colleton County’s tight‑knit community, uncovering a conspiracy that links a support group for caregivers, a con artist, and a quest for revenge.

Judge Deborah Knott investigates a brutal murder on her family farm, uncovering long‑standing land disputes, a hidden whiskey trade, and secrets from her parents’ past, all while trying to clear her brothers’ names.

In a Southern Victorian home, an ornithologist’s research on vultures draws a judge and a sheriff deputy into a murder mystery.

Judge Deborah Knott retreats to Wrightsville Beach for a summer conference, but a murder among her colleagues sparks a sleepless investigation that turns her vacation into a hunt for a killer who may be closer to home than she imagined.

Judge Knott's murder mystery in Beaufort, North Carolina, with a past lover as the suspect.

A murder forces North Carolina judge Deborah Knott into a conflict between aggressive real‑estate developers and struggling farmers, exposing corruption and hidden truths amid rapid urbanization.

During a Christmas party in rural North Carolina, a tragic car wreck turns the holiday gathering into a deadly investigation as Sheriff Deputy Dwight Bryant and Judge Deborah Knott race to uncover who killed a young cheerleader before more lives are lost.

A rural justice battle against illegal immigration and race relations in North Carolina

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life."To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story--of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school's tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder--but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse....An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions--and a rich literary delight.From the Hardcover edition.

A new mystery novel in the Deborah Knott series, featuring a woman judge from North Carolina who must solve a murder at a beach wedding in South Carolina.

Judge Deborah Knott takes a brief break in the mountain resort of Cedar Gap, but a Floridian murder forces her to return to the courtroom and chase the killer before winter lures her back to Florida.

Margaret Maron's mystery, Slow Dollar, follows fictional judge Deborah Knott as she navigates a North Carolina case that turns to the intrigue of a circus.

Uncommon Clay follows Deborah Knott, a woman judge in North Carolina, as she delves into the pottery scene while navigating mystery and detective work.

A North Carolina judge investigates the arson of black churches.

Deborah Knott, a lawyer in North Carolina, tries to become a judge but becomes entangled in an old murder case and must solve the mystery to stay in the race for election.

In Margaret Maron's atmospheric thriller 'Storm Track,' Judge Deborah Knott faces a chilling murder mystery amid an impending North Carolina hurricane, blending legal intrigue with atmospheric suspense.

A legal thriller that follows a federal judge in Philadelphia as she confronts a high‑profile case that turns into a murder‑suicide and threatens her career and personal life.

Prosecutor Vicki Allegretti is nearly shot at a rowhouse meeting, prompting her to investigate a double homicide in Philadelphia’s Devil’s Corner—an underworld of drug traffic and corruption that puts her life in danger.

Judge Deborah Knott is called to deliver a package in New York, but a missing box and a murdered doorman launch her into a mystery with the NYPD.

When her brothers’ lives endanger, Lady Margaret Chattan—vowing never to marry to break a centuries‑old curse—teams with Laird Heath Macnachtan to battle a formidable supernatural foe.