One Coffee With

This is the first of the Sigrid Harald mysteries. Sigrid is a NYC detective, in a time when female detectives were not particularly welcomed, let alone respected, in squad rooms in the NYPD. She has made her career her life, though, and for the most part does not let the attitude of many of her fellow detectives get under her skin. She is aided by one incredibly thorough (but not very intuitive) detective and her superior, Captain McKinnon, who unbeknownst to her was her father's partner when she was a child, and who blames himself for the senior Harald's death in the line of duty. This novel involves the poisoning death of a member of the art department of a college, and the academic sniping is a big part of the fun here. It seems show more nearly everyone had a motive for wanting Riley Quinn dead, and almost everyone had opportunity to put a nasty corrosive etching chemical in his coffee. Great sport watching Sigrid work it out.
2017 show less

Three and a half stars, rounded up. I liked this rather-old-fashioned academic whodunnit introducing Sigrid Harald, despite the dated aspects from its 1981 publication date and late '70s zeitgeist of it being rare for women to be in an authority position on the police force. I enjoyed the novel, the author's first long work, back when I read it in the early '80s, and I still liked Sigrid and Oscar both. I appreciate Sigrid for her career focus and refusal to play feminine games in her dealings with others. I like Oscar for having the intelligence to notice Sigrid's appeal and for his artistic skill, style, charm, maturity, and verbal quickness. Fans of Agatha Christie and Amanda Cross would enjoy this series.

It's also interesting that show more all the Harald mysteries take place over the course of a year in Sigrid's life, despite being published from 1981 to 2017.
1. One Coffee with (1981)
2. Death of A Butterfly (1984)
3. Death in Blue Folders (1985)
4. The Right Jack (1987)
5. Baby Doll Games (1988)
6. Corpus Christmas (1989)
7. Past Imperfect (1991)
8. Fugitive Colors (1995)
9. Take Out (2017) show less

Margaret Maron is an author that I keep meaning to read-- especially after having read and enjoyed her first Judge Deborah Knott mystery-- and I keep getting sidetracked. First published in 1982, One Coffee With takes Maron back to her beginnings as a writer, and her introduction to this newest release should not be missed.

However the novel itself shows her inexperience at the time. The book is so focused on the minute ins and outs of the Art Department that the story takes much too long to get moving. By the time it does, I was almost at the point of wanting everyone to be found guilty and thrown in jail just so it would end.

Only when Maron begins to delve into Sigrid Harald's character does the book begin to come to life. She's show more closed off and quirky and prefers to be left alone, but she has an eye for detail that's phenomenal. I intend to continue with the series simply because I want to know more about Harald.

One Coffee With may have a problem here and there, but it's also plain to see the promise buried inside the story. It's the beginning of a phenomenal career, and I'm glad to see how it all began. show less

Margaret Maron's first novel after (according to her introduction to this Kindle edition) many years of writing only short stories, introduces New York City policewoman Sigrid Harald. Although I've been enjoying Maron's Deborah Knott series since the beginning, I was never very interested in the earlier series. But now that Maron introduced Harald into the Deborah Knott series with Three Day Town, I thought I should go back and read at least one of the Harald books.

It is somewhat evident that One Coffee With is a first novel. Not that it's not good, but somehow it reads more like a long short story. The story of a murder in a college art department apparently did start out as a short story, and was revised and added to to bring it to show more the required length for a book. In order to do this, Maron added a slightly unbelievable love-at-first-sight subplot and another character whose arrival on the scene was also quite unusual. Although it was all well written, the plot and characters didn't hang together in the same way as in the later books after Maron has honed her craft.

Nevertheless, it was a good mystery and I'll probably catch up with the rest; it will be interesting to see how Maron's writing developed to the point that her first Deborah Knott novel won the Best Novel Edgar. show less

Synopsis: Sigrid Harald is the daughter of a policeman and an artist; she's confident in her ability as a police officer, but not in herself as an attractive person. She is trying to find out who killed art Professor Ripley Quinn but finds that the suspects either have motive but no opportunity or just the opposite. She also finds herself attracted to one of the suspects.
Review: This was a nice little brain teaser. The characters are interesting and empathetic. I'm looking forward to reading more about these characters.

This is my first venture into the Sigrid Harold series, and I must admit that I struggled with this short book. I felt that a giant tome like Victor Hugo's Les Miserables had been placed in my hands. I actually stopped reading this book, and moved to another book which is something I do not do. Sigrid Harold stands like an ice princess with no emotions and an apartment devoid of a human touch. Margaret Maron seems to be toying with her characterization of Sigrid. What will be her definite attributes? The hint of a friendship or relationship between Ingrid's boss and Ingrid's mother peeks from the shadows. I enjoy art, but the discussion of art in principle hang too heavily in the story. I am unsure if I will read more of this series

Margaret Maron is more well known for her Deborah Knott series. One Coffee With (1982) is the first book in her earlier series featuring Sigrid Harald, a NYPD homicide detective. Set on the campus of New York's Vanderlyn College, academic rivalry, petty jealousy, greed, and revenge form the backdrop to the murder of a prominent member of the Art Department faculty. I'm looking forward to reading the other seven books in this series.