{"id":4632,"date":"2022-10-25T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T16:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4632"},"modified":"2022-10-25T09:00:42","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T16:00:42","slug":"francine-mathews-death-on-a-winter-stroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/francine-mathews-death-on-a-winter-stroll\/","title":{"rendered":"Francine Mathews: Death on a Winter Stroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Great Christmas Read<\/em><\/p>\n

Confession: this is the first book I\u2019ve read in Mathews\u2019 Merry Folger series, and I very much regret not being up to date (something I plan to rectify). What a great read \u2013 it reminded me of Jane Haddam\u2019s books, without some of the sardonic edge that Haddam brought to her work.\u00a0 Set on Nantucket, the setting is spectacular, and it\u2019s obviously born of a personal love and knowledge of the area.\u00a0 She describes the social strata of a resort perfectly \u2013 the workers who serve the very wealthy who frequent Nantucket exist in a different social sphere.\u00a0 Merry, a native, is a \u201ctownie\u201d who grew up on Nantucket and has long family roots on the island. They are there when the dust of the tourist season clears, and the gap between townie and summer visitor is often vast.<\/p>\n

The book opens as Nantucket is about to celebrate the \u201cWinter Stroll,\u201d a Christmas event that brings thousands of visitors.\u00a0 The island is crowded with out of towners including the Secretary of State as well as a television crew filming a new prestige streaming show; the actors and the crew are staying at the enormous home of a software billionaire.\u00a0 The Secretary of State has arrived with her husband and stepson, a recovering addict named Ansel.\u00a0 The film crew includes two very well known stars; the male star brings his somewhat troubled daughter, Winter.\u00a0\u00a0 Both Winter and Ansel are very carefully monitored by their families, but they still find ways to escape their watchers, and they meet for the first time in a coffee shop in town.<\/p>\n

I will say that readers should exert some patience through the first couple chapters, as Mathews takes some time assembling her array of characters and there are many of them. I promise you that sticking with the story will be amply rewarded.\u00a0 Winter and Ansel turn out to be the main focus.\u00a0 They are both fumbling their way back to health (Winter suffers from bulimia) and they find a fundamental mutual understanding. Despite their youth, they are full, rich, fully realized characters.<\/p>\n

Two deaths occur, one obvious and one not at all obvious, and the police, led by Merry, must figure out the link between the two seemingly unconnected deaths. The characters and the setting deepen the story.\u00a0 Nantucket is very much front and center, and there\u2019s another major character who is squatting in an abandoned house and works as a photographer.\u00a0 The descriptions of the native birds \u2013 and the way the woman feeds them (you must read it!) \u2013 make the book more interesting, more specific and more compelling.<\/p>\n

Mathews captures the feel of a busy event, the exhaustion of the police chief who has seen the President off the island only to immediately welcome famous Hollywood stars and the Secretary of State, and who must deal with their many problems including deaths that are connected to each group.\u00a0 This is a wonderful read in the best sense of the word.\u00a0 The pages flowed through my fingers almost faster than I could turn them, so captivated was I by Mathews\u2019 depiction of Nantucket, the characters, and the twisty mystery at the center of the book.\u00a0 This book really sparkles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Great Christmas Read Confession: this is the first book I\u2019ve read in Mathews\u2019 Merry Folger series, and I very much regret not being up to date (something I plan to rectify). What a great read \u2013 it reminded me of Jane Haddam\u2019s books, without some of the sardonic edge that Haddam brought to her work.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[964,963,962,965,961,664],"class_list":["post-4632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-christmas-read","tag-death-on-a-winter-stroll","tag-francine-mathews","tag-merry-folger","tag-nantucket","tag-soho-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4632"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4636,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4632\/revisions\/4636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}