Fugitive Colors (Sigrid Harald Series #8)

by Margaret Maron

Overview

Lt. Sigrid Harald—prickly, difficult, brilliant at solving baffling cases—returns for the eighth and final book in this series. Losing a fellow officer in a shoot-out is enough to rattle her cool, controlled demeanor, but she is also devastated by the loss of her lover, world-famous Oscar Nauman. She withdraws from her colleagues, her career, her life; but she cannot escape the art world. Nauman has left her his paintings worth millions and galleries are clamoring to sell them.

Just as time has faded the warm flesh tones early Italian masters used when painting the Madonna, time lets Sigrid begin to see through the vibrant surface of New York’s art world to the interplay of revenge and greed beneath. When a shocking homicide occurs, it hits close to home for Sigrid, implicating Oscar’s friends and fellow artists. Fugitive Colors goes beyond the simple whodunit to combine a top-notch mystery with a portrait of a woman cop indelibly changed—able to notice the background details, the subtle shades, and the feelings that ultimately damn or save us all.

(Graphics by Paper Moon Graphics)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940014559751
Publisher:	Maron & Company
Publication date:	04/18/2012
Series:	Sigrid Harald Series , #8
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	148,858
File size:	183 KB

About the Author

Born and bred in North Carolina where the piedmont meets the sandhills, I grew up on a modest two-mule tobacco farm that has been in the family for over a hundred years. Tobacco is no longer grown on the farm, but the memories linger — the singing, the laughter, the gossip that went on at the bench as those rank green leaves came from the field, the bliss of an icy cold drink bottle pressed to a hot sweaty face, getting up at dawn to help “take out” a barn, the sweet smell of soft golden leaves as they’re being readied for auction. Working in tobacco is one of those life experiences I’m glad to have had. I’m even gladder that it’s something I’ll never have to do again.

After high school came two years of college until a summer job at the Pentagon led to marriage, a tour of duty in Italy, then several years in my husband’s native Brooklyn. I had always loved writing and for the first few years, wrote nothing but short stories and very bad poetry. (The legendary Ruth Cavin of St. Martin’s Press once characterized my verses as “doggerel. But inspired doggerel.”)

Eventually, I backed into writing novels about NYPD Lt. Sigrid Harald, mysteries set against the New York City art world. But love of my native state and a desire to write out of current experiences led to the creation of District Court Judge Deborah Knott, the opinionated daughter of a crusty old ex-bootlegger and youngest sibling of eleven older brothers. (I was one of only three, so no, I’m not writing about my own family.)

We’ve been back on a corner of the family land for many years now. My city-born husband discovered he prefers goldfinches, rabbits, and the occasional quiet deer to yellow cabs, concrete, and a city that never sleeps. A son, a daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters are icing on our cake.