Death in the Off-Season [Paperback]

The first Merry Folger Nantucket mystery

When Rusty Mason, scion of one of Nantucket's oldest and wealthiest families, is found dead in a flooded cranberry bog one foggy fall night, thirty-two-year-old detective Merry Folger is faced with her first murder case. Merry is the daughter of the local police chief and granddaughter of his predecessor; her father is a strict boss and Merry feels pressure to go the extra mile to prove her promotion to detective isn’t just nepotism. But the Mason murder is a demanding first test. Merry’s investigation brings to light all the tensions that plague the tiny community of Nantucket: the decades-old grudges, the skyrocketing real estate that only wealthy weekenders can afford, the resentments of the old Nantucket families who are barely keeping their homes and heritage fishing businesses alive. But Merry knows the island and its politics in a way only a local can.Praise forDeath in the Off-Season

“Wonderful . . . Nantucket and its impenetrable fog and characters come to life.”
—Diane Mott Davidson

Death in the Off-Seasonis a wonderful find . . . Detective Merry Folger comes across as a real person, albeit a smart one, with doubts and concerns.
—The Denver Post

Mathews uses her setting and its unique population skillfully.
—The San Diego Union-Tribune

Spunky but inexperienced, third-generation Nantucket cop Meredith Folger investigates murder in this spare, atmospheric debut.
—Publishers WeeklyFrancine Mathews was born in Binghamton, New York, the last of six girls. She attended Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history, before going on to work as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Since then, she has written twenty-five books, including four other novels ls~