Margaret Maron's new mystery, Rituals of the Season, came in the mail Friday, and I read it before I went to bed that evening.

The Deborah Knott mysteries are one of two series which Maron writes, and this one makes a full dozen for Judge Knott. Deborah is a judge in North Carolina, and the last of a dozen children. She has 11 brothers! Her father is a reformed bootlegger, and her mother is deceased. In Rituals of the Season, the ritual is marriage, and the season is Christmas. Deborah is finally going to marry Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant, who has known her since the day she was born. This romance has been going on for several books, and readers like myself are glad to see the end, or rather, the beginning.

The novel opens with a double murder. Deputy Attorney General Tracy Johnson is shot while driving down the interstate. She dies instantly, and her adopted baby daughter is hit by a heavy Christmas gift when the car wrecks. She dies later at the hospital. Dwight must solve this crime while attending a party practically every night. Then two young law students come to Deborah to get help with an attempt to prove the innocence of a woman who is due to be executed for murder. They have less than a month, and the trail is cold. Several witnesses have either moved or died.

Tracy Johnson was looking into the same murder on the day that she herself was killed. And a third person is killed, this one very close to Dwight.

Rituals of the Season has many interesting threads to the double mystery. The wedding plans and the enlargement of Deborah's house are fun, as are the various family members either helping or criticizing. An educated judge marrying a deputy sheriff is discussed by many characters, especially when it seems that Tracy may have been dating a deputy herself. There is some discussion of lawyers feeling contempt for clients they are forced to defend, and therefore not doing their best for those clients. The age-old temptation of easy money is present, as well as the age-old emotion of fear.

Margaret Maron ties all the threads together for a neat ending. One thread was tied a bit too neatly for me, but that's a small problem in a very good story.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is a book without a story. My son Paine recommended this book to me, and the cover says "Prepare to be dazzled." I wasn't dazzled. In fact, I was bored very nearly into a coma.

Freakonomics is written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Levitt is the economist. He believes that the crime rate has dropped as a direct result of Roe V. Wade. (Please don't write me. I didn't say it. Write to Levitt.) Dubner is the writer, and he thinks Levitt is fabulous. Levitt has set out to find the hidden side of all sorts of things. He proves that people who sell crack don't make a good living. He tells us sneaky stuff about real estate agents. Although, I thought they were simple common sense. And he tells us about the Ku Klux Klan and how sumo wrestlers and schoolteachers are alike.

The last part of Freakonomics is about the popular names for white children of both genders as opposed to the popular names for black children of both genders, and how those names have changed over the years. I didn't care about that before I started reading, and I care even less now. My advice for those looking for a child's name, however, is to get Levitt's lists and don't use any of the names on them.

Read Rituals of the Season by Margaret Maron, skip Freakonomics unless you are an economist, and don't worry about being dazzled.