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One horrible murder. Two people destined for love or tragedy. Emotions explode in the novel Julia Spencer-Fleming's readers have been clamoring for.Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne's first encounter with Clare Fergusson was in the hospital emergency room on a freezing December night. A newborn infant had been abandoned on the town's Episcopal church steps. If Russ had known that the church had a new priest, he certainly would never have guessed that it would be a woman. Not a woman like Clare. show more That night in the hospital was the beginning of an attraction so fierce, so forbidden, that the only thing that could keep them safe from compromising their every belief was distance—but in a small town like Millers Kill, distance is hard to find.
Russ Van Alstyne figures his wife kicking him out of their house is nobody's business but his own—until a neighbor pays a friendly visit to Linda Van Alstyne and finds the woman's body, gruesomely butchered, on the kitchen floor. To the state police, it's an open-and-shut case of a disaffected husband, silencing first his wife, then the murder investigation he controls. To the townspeople, it's proof that the whispered gossip about the police chief and the priest was true. To the powers that be in the church hierarchy, it's a chance to control their wayward cleric once and for all.
Obsession. Lies. Nothing is as it seems in Millers Kill, where betrayal twists old friendships and evil waits inside quaint white clapboard farmhouses.
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I really had a difficult time coming to terms with this book. The characters and their flaws really irked me. A married police chief and a priest involved in an emotional affair that everyone assumes is not so bad because it has not turned physical. The fact that the main character is a rector at a church really stunk up everything. If you are counseling couples that are soon to be wed and married couples in crisis, how can you chase a married man? The ethics or the lack thereof, makes me want to throw up. No police chief in his right mind would have tolerated anyone tagging along and not only contributing to the investigating, but also directing it many cases. He comes off as weak, dumb and whipped by a woman he is not even show more ‘involved’ with.
She comes off as a bimbo in a clerical collar pretending to be virtuous because she cannot control her emotions enough to stay away from a ‘happily’ married man. Clare for me is and has remained the bad person in this story, no matter how self deprecated she is painted to be. The author attempts to use the ridiculous ploy of showing Clare’s and Russ’s humanity to excuse their behavior to get the reader to understand and feel sorry for their pain and suffering (completely ignoring the pain and suffering they cause); will not make up for the lack of professionalism (Clare and Russ), lack of integrity (Clare and Russ) or even the unremitting drive to bulldoze the feeling of someone they ‘care’ (Russ) about in characters. I ended up cheering for the wife and hating the people who hurt her by their selfish actions. Russ is a dedicated husband of 25 years of marriage to what is described a smart, beautiful woman but he is falls in love with Clare who is the exact opposite of his wife. I would have believed him to be a hero if he had maintained his marriage.
This series makes Christians and law enforcement look dumb and weak. Is that the author’s intent? show less
She comes off as a bimbo in a clerical collar pretending to be virtuous because she cannot control her emotions enough to stay away from a ‘happily’ married man. Clare for me is and has remained the bad person in this story, no matter how self deprecated she is painted to be. The author attempts to use the ridiculous ploy of showing Clare’s and Russ’s humanity to excuse their behavior to get the reader to understand and feel sorry for their pain and suffering (completely ignoring the pain and suffering they cause); will not make up for the lack of professionalism (Clare and Russ), lack of integrity (Clare and Russ) or even the unremitting drive to bulldoze the feeling of someone they ‘care’ (Russ) about in characters. I ended up cheering for the wife and hating the people who hurt her by their selfish actions. Russ is a dedicated husband of 25 years of marriage to what is described a smart, beautiful woman but he is falls in love with Clare who is the exact opposite of his wife. I would have believed him to be a hero if he had maintained his marriage.
This series makes Christians and law enforcement look dumb and weak. Is that the author’s intent? show less
'All Mortal Flesh' is book five in this crime series about a woman priest and the Chief of Police of a small town of Millers Kill in the Adirondack mountains in New York The two of them keep being thrown together as they try to sort out various violent deaths in the town.
Book by book, the attraction between them has grown, fed partly by denial and mostly by a common urge to act and to protect.
BUT
...the Police Chief is married. To a very nice, very attractive woman (it annoys me a little that it matters whether she's attractive - it shouldn't pile on the angst - she's his wife - that should be enough) that he dragged to this small town when he retired from the Army and with whom he has not been able to have children with. His wife, show more he believes, is a woman that he still loves.
...the Priest is deeply committed to her faith and her parish and knows that she can't honour those things AND keep feeding her attraction to the Police Chief.
By the violent and traumatic end of the fourth book, aptly titled ‘To Darkness And To Death’, both of them have realised that, although they haven't had sex, they have had an affair in their hearts, with all the betrayals that that involves.
I'd wondered how the fifth book would cope with this. I had expected another mystery during which the two of them would go through the slow torture of deciding what to do, even though there are no good choices but Julia Spencer-Fleming is braver than me and she's given the fifth book an explosive start.
The book opens with the Priest having gone on a week's retreat, during which she's reached a conclusion and now expects never to see the Police Chief again. THEN I find that the Police Chief's wife has thrown him out and shared the reasons with her best friend. THEN her best friend finds the Police Chief's wife murdered.
And all of that was in the first five per cent of the book.
I'd clearly underestimated how much pain Julia Spencer-Fleming is willing to put her characters through. This was an edge-of-the-seat -how-can-THIS-have-gotten-worse sort of book.
This book has claws and it slipped them into my imagination the way a cat will hook your flesh if you show it too much trust. I needed to know what happened next, not just because the plot was full of surprises that kept me guessing about who had done what to whom, or because the way the story cut back and forth between Clare and Russ kept the tension ramped up but because I needed to see a way through the grief. 'All Mortal Flesh' is soaked in grief, real messy, ugly, I-want-to-look-away-from-this-grief, not the romantic don't-you-just-want-to-hug-him/her kind.
Neither Clare nor Russ let themselves off the hook for their actions or the consequences of their actions. Both are determined to do the right thing. It's painful to watch but it feels true.
The language of the book is one of the things that make it so powerful. Take this description that opens the chapter in which Russ appears for the first time in this book:
There are moments in life that are between: between the blow and the pain, between the phone ringing and the answer, between the misstep and the fall. One that comes to everyone is a moment, or three, or five, between sleeping and waking, when the past has not yet been re-created out of memory and the present has made no impression. It is a moment of great mercy; disorienting, like all brushes with grace, but a gift nonetheless.
'when the past has not yet been re-created out of memory and the present has made no impression' - I love that.
Then there's this description of Clare in a moment when she is guilty entertaining the hope that she and Russ might have a future. I think it captures Clare's values perfectly:
But she could not forget Russ’s pain, his poor murdered wife, or the guilt – equal parts sin and complicity – that clung to her like a wet dress.
I was very impressed by this instalment of the series and I'll be back for book six, ' I Shall Not Want', shortly. show less
Book by book, the attraction between them has grown, fed partly by denial and mostly by a common urge to act and to protect.
BUT
...the Police Chief is married. To a very nice, very attractive woman (it annoys me a little that it matters whether she's attractive - it shouldn't pile on the angst - she's his wife - that should be enough) that he dragged to this small town when he retired from the Army and with whom he has not been able to have children with. His wife, show more he believes, is a woman that he still loves.
...the Priest is deeply committed to her faith and her parish and knows that she can't honour those things AND keep feeding her attraction to the Police Chief.
By the violent and traumatic end of the fourth book, aptly titled ‘To Darkness And To Death’, both of them have realised that, although they haven't had sex, they have had an affair in their hearts, with all the betrayals that that involves.
I'd wondered how the fifth book would cope with this. I had expected another mystery during which the two of them would go through the slow torture of deciding what to do, even though there are no good choices but Julia Spencer-Fleming is braver than me and she's given the fifth book an explosive start.
The book opens with the Priest having gone on a week's retreat, during which she's reached a conclusion and now expects never to see the Police Chief again. THEN I find that the Police Chief's wife has thrown him out and shared the reasons with her best friend. THEN her best friend finds the Police Chief's wife murdered.
And all of that was in the first five per cent of the book.
I'd clearly underestimated how much pain Julia Spencer-Fleming is willing to put her characters through. This was an edge-of-the-seat -how-can-THIS-have-gotten-worse sort of book.
This book has claws and it slipped them into my imagination the way a cat will hook your flesh if you show it too much trust. I needed to know what happened next, not just because the plot was full of surprises that kept me guessing about who had done what to whom, or because the way the story cut back and forth between Clare and Russ kept the tension ramped up but because I needed to see a way through the grief. 'All Mortal Flesh' is soaked in grief, real messy, ugly, I-want-to-look-away-from-this-grief, not the romantic don't-you-just-want-to-hug-him/her kind.
Neither Clare nor Russ let themselves off the hook for their actions or the consequences of their actions. Both are determined to do the right thing. It's painful to watch but it feels true.
The language of the book is one of the things that make it so powerful. Take this description that opens the chapter in which Russ appears for the first time in this book:
There are moments in life that are between: between the blow and the pain, between the phone ringing and the answer, between the misstep and the fall. One that comes to everyone is a moment, or three, or five, between sleeping and waking, when the past has not yet been re-created out of memory and the present has made no impression. It is a moment of great mercy; disorienting, like all brushes with grace, but a gift nonetheless.
'when the past has not yet been re-created out of memory and the present has made no impression' - I love that.
Then there's this description of Clare in a moment when she is guilty entertaining the hope that she and Russ might have a future. I think it captures Clare's values perfectly:
But she could not forget Russ’s pain, his poor murdered wife, or the guilt – equal parts sin and complicity – that clung to her like a wet dress.
I was very impressed by this instalment of the series and I'll be back for book six, ' I Shall Not Want', shortly. show less
This fifth book in Spencer-Fleming's excellent series satisfies on so many levels. It raises some very thoughtful questions about relationships and morality in today's world while telling a story that's full of emotion and misdirection. The gossipmongers of small town Millers Kill are perfectly portrayed, and their interference raises the tension of this fast-paced tale.
As always, the two main characters continue to evolve. In All Mortal Flesh, Russ and Clare aren't quite as strong and capable as they've been in previous books. Clare seems almost frozen in despair, especially when the church hierarchy sends a deacon to oversee the behavior of their problem priest. Russ is almost brought to his knees by the death of his wife, numb with show more grief and regret, and reacting like a little boy when his mother arrives at the crime scene-- "short and squat and beautiful." Even Clare needs some of Margy Van Alstyne's quiet, no-nonsense strength, and when she soaks in the atmosphere of the older woman's kitchen, she realizes that it feels like her own grandmother's: "Like you had rounded all the bases and come home safe." Being able to see these two strong people when they're not at their best brings added depth to the story and to the series as a whole.
At times the plot seems a bit over-the-top and almost soap opera-ish, but I've grown so attached to these characters that I had no trouble suspending my disbelief. Spencer-Fleming employs some of the best misdirection to be found, and although one of the red herrings didn't throw me off the scent, I was annoyed that I did indeed inhale one of the oldest fish in the trade. Shame on me. Ah well, I'm going to chalk my mistake up to the fact that I was immersed in the story, and practically blind and deaf to the world around me. All Mortal Flesh ends in a heart-breaking cliffhanger that makes me want to pick up the next book and dive right in. In this series, the characters' lives mirror the real world. Everything is not wrapped up and tied with shiny bows. This fictional world is every bit as messy as our own lives, and Julia Spencer-Fleming has made me care deeply about what happens to Russ and Clare. show less
As always, the two main characters continue to evolve. In All Mortal Flesh, Russ and Clare aren't quite as strong and capable as they've been in previous books. Clare seems almost frozen in despair, especially when the church hierarchy sends a deacon to oversee the behavior of their problem priest. Russ is almost brought to his knees by the death of his wife, numb with show more grief and regret, and reacting like a little boy when his mother arrives at the crime scene-- "short and squat and beautiful." Even Clare needs some of Margy Van Alstyne's quiet, no-nonsense strength, and when she soaks in the atmosphere of the older woman's kitchen, she realizes that it feels like her own grandmother's: "Like you had rounded all the bases and come home safe." Being able to see these two strong people when they're not at their best brings added depth to the story and to the series as a whole.
At times the plot seems a bit over-the-top and almost soap opera-ish, but I've grown so attached to these characters that I had no trouble suspending my disbelief. Spencer-Fleming employs some of the best misdirection to be found, and although one of the red herrings didn't throw me off the scent, I was annoyed that I did indeed inhale one of the oldest fish in the trade. Shame on me. Ah well, I'm going to chalk my mistake up to the fact that I was immersed in the story, and practically blind and deaf to the world around me. All Mortal Flesh ends in a heart-breaking cliffhanger that makes me want to pick up the next book and dive right in. In this series, the characters' lives mirror the real world. Everything is not wrapped up and tied with shiny bows. This fictional world is every bit as messy as our own lives, and Julia Spencer-Fleming has made me care deeply about what happens to Russ and Clare. show less
This is the fifth book in the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series, and I can't write this review without first mentioning something that may or may not be a spoiler. So if that matters to you, you'd better stop reading right now.
Russ is chief of police in Miller's Kill, New York. Clare is an Episcopal priest in a local church. At the beginning of this book, Russ' wife Linda is found dead in their home. At first Russ attempts to take control of the investigation, which is admittedly ridiculous. One of his officers escalates the matter to the state police and another investigator is assigned. Russ and Linda recently separated after Russ revealed his romantic relationship with Clare, so naturally both Russ and Clare are show more suspects. But as the investigation moves ahead a tangled web emerges, involving identity theft, animal cruelty, mistaken identity, and troubled teenagers.
Pretty soon the reader doesn't know which end is up, and that's exactly where Julia Spencer-Fleming wants us to be. And then she begins to connect the dots, slowly revealing elements of the mystery. This series is known for placing the protagonists in impossibly hazardous situations, and I was a little disappointed when I accurately predicted the scene. But there was so much more I could never have predicted, including the murderer's identity, and the shocking ending. This was my favorite book in the series so far! show less
Russ is chief of police in Miller's Kill, New York. Clare is an Episcopal priest in a local church. At the beginning of this book, Russ' wife Linda is found dead in their home. At first Russ attempts to take control of the investigation, which is admittedly ridiculous. One of his officers escalates the matter to the state police and another investigator is assigned. Russ and Linda recently separated after Russ revealed his romantic relationship with Clare, so naturally both Russ and Clare are show more suspects. But as the investigation moves ahead a tangled web emerges, involving identity theft, animal cruelty, mistaken identity, and troubled teenagers.
Pretty soon the reader doesn't know which end is up, and that's exactly where Julia Spencer-Fleming wants us to be. And then she begins to connect the dots, slowly revealing elements of the mystery. This series is known for placing the protagonists in impossibly hazardous situations, and I was a little disappointed when I accurately predicted the scene. But there was so much more I could never have predicted, including the murderer's identity, and the shocking ending. This was my favorite book in the series so far! show less
SPOILERS
This has all of the things I don't like about the rest of the series times ten.
First, it's a romance novel. I started skimming through the chapters that had nothing to do with the mystery plot and if you do that, it's almost a short story.
Second, the inappropriateness of how both Clare and Russ act in terms of their professions gets really grating. In this book, it's ridiculous that a police officer would lead the investigation into the murder of his wife, but all the "good" people in the book are OUTRAGED that anyone would dare imply that someone UNRELATED TO THE VICTIM come lead the investigation. The book treats the outside investigator like she's just as much of a villain as the murderer. Any good police show more officer/person/grieving husband would immediately excuse themselves due to conflict of interest, because you would never be able to actually prosecute someone for a crime if the victim's husband was in charge of collecting all the evidence.
And one of the police officers is supposed to be terrible for wanting to investigate Clare. She's friends with the police chief, so anyone who would want to investigate her is a monster, like the police are supposed to have a list of people who are not to be investigated no matter what because they're really nice and it would be rude. In all the books, having your priest be really close to the chief of police is really problematic - but at least the books acknowledge that, unlike how they treat the idea that a police officer would lead the investigation into his wife's murder.
Third, it's really melodramatic and self-serious. It's like someone made a novelization of a soap opera. There doesn't have to be a car crash in every book. A marriage can just end, there doesn't have to be a big reveal about adultery with the husband's co-worker. Other books contain even more car crashes, small town police officers planting drugs on people, police officers having secret pasts in pornography, main characters becoming drug addicts (deployments are hard but they don't turn every single veteran into a drug addict with post-traumatic stress disorder), child pornography ... it's lurid.
I was just excited because the first book got so many awards, including the Agatha Award - I expected the series to be more mysterious. I think the earlier books are better (didn't read Fountain Filled With Blood but did read the other three). I do like the setting (although we do have summer in all parts of Upstate New York, it's not actually Antarctica). But I hate this one and the ones that I've read that come after. show less
This has all of the things I don't like about the rest of the series times ten.
First, it's a romance novel. I started skimming through the chapters that had nothing to do with the mystery plot and if you do that, it's almost a short story.
Second, the inappropriateness of how both Clare and Russ act in terms of their professions gets really grating. In this book, it's ridiculous that a police officer would lead the investigation into the murder of his wife, but all the "good" people in the book are OUTRAGED that anyone would dare imply that someone UNRELATED TO THE VICTIM come lead the investigation. The book treats the outside investigator like she's just as much of a villain as the murderer. Any good police show more officer/person/grieving husband would immediately excuse themselves due to conflict of interest, because you would never be able to actually prosecute someone for a crime if the victim's husband was in charge of collecting all the evidence.
And one of the police officers is supposed to be terrible for wanting to investigate Clare. She's friends with the police chief, so anyone who would want to investigate her is a monster, like the police are supposed to have a list of people who are not to be investigated no matter what because they're really nice and it would be rude. In all the books, having your priest be really close to the chief of police is really problematic - but at least the books acknowledge that, unlike how they treat the idea that a police officer would lead the investigation into his wife's murder.
Third, it's really melodramatic and self-serious. It's like someone made a novelization of a soap opera. There doesn't have to be a car crash in every book. A marriage can just end, there doesn't have to be a big reveal about adultery with the husband's co-worker. Other books contain even more car crashes, small town police officers planting drugs on people, police officers having secret pasts in pornography, main characters becoming drug addicts (deployments are hard but they don't turn every single veteran into a drug addict with post-traumatic stress disorder), child pornography ... it's lurid.
I was just excited because the first book got so many awards, including the Agatha Award - I expected the series to be more mysterious. I think the earlier books are better (didn't read Fountain Filled With Blood but did read the other three). I do like the setting (although we do have summer in all parts of Upstate New York, it's not actually Antarctica). But I hate this one and the ones that I've read that come after. show less
The fifth book reaches out and grabs you by the throat right in the beginning and doesn't let go. It is the biggest emotional roller coaster I've read in a long time (I'm still reeling from it and I've started on the next book). While some elements of the plot were entirely predictable (one I knew had to be coming since the very first book of the series), others come out of nowhere and blindside you. Yet the entire thing was simultaneously satisfying and heartbreaking. All of the characters were so complex. Even the ones who pissed me off made me think about it first.
I only have two books left. What am I going to do when I run out? The wait will kill me!
I only have two books left. What am I going to do when I run out? The wait will kill me!
All Mortal Flesh is the fifth novel in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s mystery series featuring Clare Fergusson, an Episcopalian priest and former Army helicopter pilot in the Adirondack town of Miller’s Kill, New York. This is the best of the series so far, as Fergusson and her love interest – the married Chief of Police, Russ van Alstyne — find themselves solving a murder mystery one step ahead of those who think they are the most likely suspects. Both the mystery and the personal side of the story are spritely and satisfying, right up to the exciting finale.
Spencer-Fleming is doing a terrific job with this series. So far, she has come up with plausible enough circumstances in each book to get Fergusson involved in solving the mystery show more – a difficult task with any “amateur sleuth,” but particularly tricky when the sleuth is a priest. Also, she is building up a solid cast of supporting characters that bring depth to the series. Finally, she is remarkably adept at stretching out the relationship between Fergusson and van Alstyne, maintaining the sexual crackle between them, always moving the relationship forward, but never – so far – bringing them together.
There are two more books in the series. Hopefully Spencer-Fleming has more in the works.
Also posted on Rose City Reader. show less
Spencer-Fleming is doing a terrific job with this series. So far, she has come up with plausible enough circumstances in each book to get Fergusson involved in solving the mystery show more – a difficult task with any “amateur sleuth,” but particularly tricky when the sleuth is a priest. Also, she is building up a solid cast of supporting characters that bring depth to the series. Finally, she is remarkably adept at stretching out the relationship between Fergusson and van Alstyne, maintaining the sexual crackle between them, always moving the relationship forward, but never – so far – bringing them together.
There are two more books in the series. Hopefully Spencer-Fleming has more in the works.
Also posted on Rose City Reader. show less
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ThingScore 100
The fifth installment of this underrated series tops even the pyrotechnics of To Darkness and to Death (2005)—even as it leaves you wondering whether it’ll be the last we’ll hear of Russ and Clare.
added by rretzler
The high-stakes plot evolves seamlessly with totally unexpected twists and turns, culminating in a climax that surpasses the drama of previous outings.
added by rretzler
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57 works; 3 members
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Author Information
17+ Works 7,452 Members
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Awards
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- Canonical title
- All Mortal Flesh
- Original title
- All Mortal Flesh
- Original publication date
- 2006
- People/Characters
- Clare Fergusson (Reverend); Linda Van Alstyne; Russ Van Alstyne; Elizabeth de Groot (Reverend); Noble Entwhistle; Lyle MacAuley (show all 22); Mark Durkee; Eric McCrea; Kevin Flynn; Harlene Lendrum; Quinn Tracey; Aaron MacEntyre; Rachel Durkee; Lois; Meg Tracey; Quinn Tracey; Margy Van Alstyne; Willard Aberforth; Geoff Burns; Karen Burns; Emil Dvorak; John Opperman
- Important places
- Adirondack Mountains, New York, USA; Miller's Kill, New York, USA; New York, USA; USA
- Epigraph
- Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in his hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
King of k... (show all)ings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords in human vesture,
In the Body and the Blood,
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.
Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of Light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.
At his feet the six-winged seraph;
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the Presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
"Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia, Lord Most High!"
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, The Hymnal 1982 The Church Publishing Company - Dedication
- To independent booksellers everywhere, and especially to (follows a long list of booksellers)
- First words
- Monday, January 14
Midway this way of life we're bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone.
Clare smelled the smoke first. - Quotations
- Your brother is the closest thing I've ever seen to a real life Horton the Elephant.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And she was lost again.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)“Welcome to the 142nd Aviation Battalion, Captain Fergusson.” - Blurbers
- Lee Child; Tess Gerritsen; Lisa Gardner
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- Reviews
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- 11
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