Death in a Mood Indigo

June 2, 1997
A dog that digs up a skeleton on a beach starts an investigation that reveals a series of homicides and adulterous liaisons in the latest cast for Nantucket Police Detective Meredith Folger (Death in Rough Water, 1995). In the process, Merry is caught in a jurisdictional squabble involving her department, state police and the FBI. Forensic psychiatrist Tucker Enright hopes to find a link to serial murders the state cops and FBI are jointly investigating. But the skeleton is that of Dr. Elizabeth Osborne, who vanished from Nantucket eight years earlier during an affair with sculptor Ian Markham, who also vanished. It was Markham's children and their dog, living on Nantucket with their embittered mother, Julia, who discovered the skeleton. Delving into the past, the earnest Merry instinctively suspects the dead woman's husband, Harvard law professor Jack Osborne. Then Enright links the shocking murder of a Nantucket schoolteacher, Roxanne Teasdale, to the serial killer. And the cases begin to mesh as it's learned that Roxanne was having an affair with Jack Osborne. Although Enright and FBI investigator Dana Stevens admonish Merry to distance herself from her work, her commitment to the victims is justified in a slam-bang finale that baits and switches the reader before identifying the real murderer. (July) FYI: Writing as Stephanie Barron, Matthews is also author of the Jane Austen mystery series.