Julia Spencer-Fleming
Author of In the Bleak Midwinter
About the Author
Image credit: Photo Credit: R Aileen Eflin
(Roxanne Eflin Consulting)
(Roxanne Eflin Consulting)
Series
Works by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Black Maps 1 copy
Associated Works
Kirjavaliot - Tokion varjot, Kuikan huuto, Minä en pelkää, Keskellä kylmää talvea (2003) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Spencer-Fleming, Julia
- Other names
- Fleming, Julia Spencer
- Birthdate
- 1962
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Ithaca College
George Washington University
University of Maine School of Law (J.D.) - Occupations
- lawyer
author - Agent
- Meg Ruley
Jimmy Vines - Short biography
- Bestselling author JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING is the winner of the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, Dilys, Barry, Nero Wolfe, and Gumshoe Awards, and an Edgar and Romantic Times RC Award finalist. She was born at Plattsburgh Air Force Base, spending most of her childhood on the move as an army brat. She studied acting and history at Ithaca College, and received her J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law. She lives in a 190-year-old farmhouse outside of Portland, Maine, with three children, two dogs, and one husband.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Plattsburgh, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Portland, Maine, USA
Buxton, Maine, USA
Salmon Falls, Maine, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- Maine, USA
Members
Reviews
Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne are back. It's been six years since publication of the previous book, but Millers Kill, NY appears to have been frozen in time. In the previous book Russ left the police force after a long career; this book picks up shortly after that. Russ is happy to be retired but hasn't found his "new purpose" just yet. Then a white supremacist float appears in the town's Christmas Parade, sending shock waves through the community. Russ and his wife Clare, an show more Episcopal priest, visit a couple known to be involved with the parade float, and soon realize there's a well-organized militia operating in the area. Russ then learns that one of his former officers is now working undercover investigating the militia, and hasn't been heard from in some time. Russ can't let this go, and joins an active duty officer in an unofficial effort to locate their friend and colleague. This soon evolves into a full-blown investigation, and at the same time Clare engages with the wives of two militia members out of concern for their safety. This is, unfortunately, a believable plot and Julia Spencer-Fleming effectively builds suspense up to a dramatic conclusion. My only quibble with this book was the epilogue which tied up a few loose ends but ultimately didn't add much to the novel and left me wondering why Spencer-Fleming chose to include it. show less
It must be difficult to write a mystery series that "works," time and again, without getting formulaic. In my previous encounters with the genre, I've typically made it through three books before tiring of the author's premise and/or characters. So I was pleasantly surprised to find Out of the Deep I Cry the best Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery so far.
For the uninitiated, the series takes place in Millers Kill, a town in New York's Adirondacks region. Clare Fergusson is an Episcopal show more Priest at St. Alban's; Russ Van Alstyne is the Millers Kill Chief of Police. This is an unlikely crime-solving combination, made even more interesting by the mutual and forbidden attraction between the two. Clare has a habit of sticking her nose into police incidents that involve her parishioners, and sometimes her professional link is quite tenuous. And since she's a priest, not an officer of the law, she often over steps her boundaries and gets both herself and Russ into predicaments. But at the same time, her clerical collar gives her license to enter into situations and gather evidence that Russ could not get easily. It's a great formula.
In this installment, Clare is counseling a woman with an autistic child, who has held public protests against a doctor's vaccination practices. Russ gets involved when the doctor disappears. The doctor has strong ties to a local family, the Ketchems, who funded the clinic where he works. The full story behind the doctor, his methods, and his disappearance goes back some 70 years, when the Ketchems were a young farming couple. Spencer-Fleming spins a superb tale that moves between "then" and "now," bringing historic characters to life and shedding new light on the case.
And of course, there's that flame between Clare and Russ. Every case they solve provides opportunities for them to be alone, and opportunities for private reflection on their feelings for the other. When they are inevitably thrown together to face a life-threatening situation, their fear intensifies all other emotions. Each book in this series has added new dimensions to their relationship, while leaving much to look forward to in future novels. show less
For the uninitiated, the series takes place in Millers Kill, a town in New York's Adirondacks region. Clare Fergusson is an Episcopal show more Priest at St. Alban's; Russ Van Alstyne is the Millers Kill Chief of Police. This is an unlikely crime-solving combination, made even more interesting by the mutual and forbidden attraction between the two. Clare has a habit of sticking her nose into police incidents that involve her parishioners, and sometimes her professional link is quite tenuous. And since she's a priest, not an officer of the law, she often over steps her boundaries and gets both herself and Russ into predicaments. But at the same time, her clerical collar gives her license to enter into situations and gather evidence that Russ could not get easily. It's a great formula.
In this installment, Clare is counseling a woman with an autistic child, who has held public protests against a doctor's vaccination practices. Russ gets involved when the doctor disappears. The doctor has strong ties to a local family, the Ketchems, who funded the clinic where he works. The full story behind the doctor, his methods, and his disappearance goes back some 70 years, when the Ketchems were a young farming couple. Spencer-Fleming spins a superb tale that moves between "then" and "now," bringing historic characters to life and shedding new light on the case.
And of course, there's that flame between Clare and Russ. Every case they solve provides opportunities for them to be alone, and opportunities for private reflection on their feelings for the other. When they are inevitably thrown together to face a life-threatening situation, their fear intensifies all other emotions. Each book in this series has added new dimensions to their relationship, while leaving much to look forward to in future novels. show less
This seventh book in a wonderful series is quieter and much more personal than the rest have been, but it deals with some very serious subject matter. First and foremost is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Each of the five vets attending the group therapy sessions suffers from it, and each one's symptoms are different. Throughout the series, the Reverend Clare Fergusson has been a rock, someone others look up to in times of need. To have her suffer from PTSD and to show her coping with it in show more very inappropriate ways brings home how serious the disorder is. Readers have already grown to care deeply about Clare, so their sympathy and understanding is more or less guaranteed. By their very proximity, the other four veterans are brought in under the umbrella of understanding that has been extended to Clare.
The lives of the characters also progress in this book, including my favorite, Hadley Knox. Hadley's been thrown into an occupation that she thinks she is very ill-qualified for, but she's determined to do the best that she can for her children, and being a police officer brings in the money that she needs. What she can't see (and we can) is that she's better qualified than she thinks, and I always enjoy the scenes in which she appears.
With all this talk of PTSD and characters' personal lives, you might think that the mystery isn't up to the author's usual high standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are our favorite characters' lives moving forward, One Was a Soldier also has a first-rate investigation that kept me guessing throughout. One more book, and I'll be current... unless Spencer-Fleming manages to get one step ahead of me! show less
The lives of the characters also progress in this book, including my favorite, Hadley Knox. Hadley's been thrown into an occupation that she thinks she is very ill-qualified for, but she's determined to do the best that she can for her children, and being a police officer brings in the money that she needs. What she can't see (and we can) is that she's better qualified than she thinks, and I always enjoy the scenes in which she appears.
With all this talk of PTSD and characters' personal lives, you might think that the mystery isn't up to the author's usual high standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only are our favorite characters' lives moving forward, One Was a Soldier also has a first-rate investigation that kept me guessing throughout. One more book, and I'll be current... unless Spencer-Fleming manages to get one step ahead of me! show less
One of the interesting things about this series is that it began as contemporary and is slowly becoming a series of period pieces. When the first volume was published in 2002, it was set in roughly the then-present day. As years have passed between books, each of which is set no more than a few months after the last one, the series has slipped out of sync with real time. This book, published in 2020, is set in 2005.
Our principal characters are Clare Fergusson, mililary helicopter pilot show more turned Episcopal priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, police chief in Millers Kill, a small town in upstate New York. In this book, they're only recently married, and still learning how to juggle two careers with their infant son.
The central mystery is the death of a young woman, found lying on a remote back road wearing an expensive party dress, with no visible signs of foul play. That triggers painful memories for local law enforcement, because similar young women were found dead in the same spot, wearing similar clothing, in both 1952 and 1972, and neither murder was ever solved.
For Russ, the memories are especially difficult. In 1972, he was just returned from Vietnam when he discovered the body, and he was one of the principal suspects. Charges were never filed, and the police chief at the time was ultimately convinced that he wasn't the killer, but he was never formally cleared. And the prospect that this murder might also go unsolved is troubling because of an upcoming vote that could disband the Millers Kill Police Department and return policing duties for the area to the state police.
Meanwhile, Clare (who takes more of a back seat for most of this installment in the series) is offered an opportunity to take on an intern, a seminary student who will help to reduce her workload while learning about the duties of a priest. Clare's superiors aren't entirely unselfish in offering her this assistance; she's the only priest in the area who's liberal enough to accept a trans woman as an intern.
Spencer-Fleming cuts back and forth among the three murder investigations very effectively, and the lead officers on the earlier cases are sharply drawn characters, especially given the limited number of pages she has to work with for each of them. There are also effective subplots for a couple of the other officers on the (current) Millers Kill police force, one of which leads to the novel's coda, setting up the next volume.
This is one of the best series going, and I am always happy to see a new Spencer-Fleming novel. Don't know how it took me so long to get around to reading this one, but I'm glad I finally got to it; it's a terrific book. show less
Our principal characters are Clare Fergusson, mililary helicopter pilot show more turned Episcopal priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, police chief in Millers Kill, a small town in upstate New York. In this book, they're only recently married, and still learning how to juggle two careers with their infant son.
The central mystery is the death of a young woman, found lying on a remote back road wearing an expensive party dress, with no visible signs of foul play. That triggers painful memories for local law enforcement, because similar young women were found dead in the same spot, wearing similar clothing, in both 1952 and 1972, and neither murder was ever solved.
For Russ, the memories are especially difficult. In 1972, he was just returned from Vietnam when he discovered the body, and he was one of the principal suspects. Charges were never filed, and the police chief at the time was ultimately convinced that he wasn't the killer, but he was never formally cleared. And the prospect that this murder might also go unsolved is troubling because of an upcoming vote that could disband the Millers Kill Police Department and return policing duties for the area to the state police.
Meanwhile, Clare (who takes more of a back seat for most of this installment in the series) is offered an opportunity to take on an intern, a seminary student who will help to reduce her workload while learning about the duties of a priest. Clare's superiors aren't entirely unselfish in offering her this assistance; she's the only priest in the area who's liberal enough to accept a trans woman as an intern.
Spencer-Fleming cuts back and forth among the three murder investigations very effectively, and the lead officers on the earlier cases are sharply drawn characters, especially given the limited number of pages she has to work with for each of them. There are also effective subplots for a couple of the other officers on the (current) Millers Kill police force, one of which leads to the novel's coda, setting up the next volume.
This is one of the best series going, and I am always happy to see a new Spencer-Fleming novel. Don't know how it took me so long to get around to reading this one, but I'm glad I finally got to it; it's a terrific book. show less
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