Maron was born and grew up in central North Carolina. She has also lived in Italy. She and her husband, artist Joe Maron, lived in Brooklyn before returning to her home state where they now live.

Maron is the author of numerous short stories and more than 20 mystery novels to date. One series of novels features Sigrid Harald, a loner lieutenant in the NYPD whose policeman father was killed in the line of duty when she was a toddler (The Right Jack. A Sigrid Harald Mystery). Another series follows the adventures of Judge Deborah Knott, attorney and daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger.

Current listing of novels (source @ margaretmaron.com)

The Deborah Knott Series:

• Bootlegger's Daughter, 1992
• Southern Discomfort, 1993
• Shooting at Loons, 1994
• Up Jumps the Devil, 1996
• Killer Market, 1997
• Home Fires, 1998
• Storm Track, 2000
• Uncommon Clay, 2001
• Slow Dollar, 2002
• High Country Fall, 2004
• Rituals of the Season, 2005
• Winter’s Child, 2006
• Hard Row, 2007
• Death’s Half-Acre, 2008
• Sand Sharks, 2009
• Christmas Mourning, 2010

The Sigrid Harald Series:

• One Coffee With, 1981
• Death of a Butterfly, 1984
• Death in Blue Folders, 1985
• The Right Jack, 1987
• Baby Doll Games, 1988
• Corpus Christmas, 1989
• Past Imperfect, 1991
• Fugitive Colors, 1995

Non-series:

• Bloody Kin, 1985 (First “Colleton County” book)
• Shoveling Smoke 1997 (Collected short stories)
• Last Lessons of Summer 2003
• Suitable for Hanging, 2004 (Second collection of short stories)

Her 1992 novel Bootlegger's Daughter was a Washington Post bestseller and swept all the major awards that year, including the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity awards. She has since won additional Agathas for Up Jumps the Devil (1996), and Storm Track (2000).

Her works have been translated into a dozen languages and are on the reading lists of many courses in contemporary Southern literature.

She will receive an honorary doctorate from and give the commencement address to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in May 2010, where she was a student for two years.

Maron is a founding member and past president of Sisters in Crime and of the American Crime Writers' League, and a director on the national board for Mystery Writers of America. She was a keynote speaker at the Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave in 2004.