September. A beautiful New York editor retreats to a lonely cabin on a hill in the quiet Maine beach town of Dead River—off season—awaiting her sister and friends. Nearby, a savage human family with a taste for flesh lurks in the darkening woods, watching, waiting for the moon to rise and night to fall... And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.

When Off Season, a novel of horror and cannibalism in modern day Maine, was first released in 1980, it took readers by storm and sold over 250,000 copies However, the original edition was edited and content was removed from the story at the publisher's request. The whole effect of the book was deemed to intense, in particular the ending, which is completely restored in this edition. The Overlook Connection Press has released this edition in its original unexpurgated state for the first time anywhere. The author's original vision can now be read. This book has not been available in the US for almost two decades in any edition. We have a special introduction by Douglas E. Winter, who has championed this novel for years. Also an Afterword by the author Jack Ketchum.

Just when you thought the horror of Off Season was vanquished in their first outing, The Family, lives on... years later continuing to terrorize the coast of Maine. And their zest for life, and yours, continues on in The Family tradition. The local sheriff of Dead River, Maine, thought he'd killed them off ten years ago... a primitive, cave-dwelling tribe of predatory savages. But somehow, the clan survived. To breed. To hunt. To kill and eat. Now the peaceful residents, who came to Dead River to escape civilization, are fighting for their lives....

The Woman is the last of her kind, the lone survivor of a tribe of feral cannibals who have terrorized the Maine coast for years. She is wounded and weak, but she's found refuge in a cave overlooking the sea. Christopher Cleek is an amoral—and unstable—lawyer who sees her bathing in a stream one day while he's out hunting. Cleek has dark, cruel secrets and he will now add one more. He will capture the Woman, lock her in his cellar, and attempt to tame her, with the help of his wife and children. But very soon the question will become: Who is more savage, the hunter or the prey?