Out of the Deep I Cry

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 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 show more 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

It begins with a confrontation at the local free clinic when an anti-vaxxer confronts the doctor blaming a vaccine for her son's autism. Clare just happens to be passing by on her way to volunteer at the local historical society for Lent.

Then a leak in the churches roof leads to an immediate need for funding. One of the church's board members suggests liquidating a trust that she has been managing from her mother's inheritance. The only problem is that the earnings from the trust have been supporting that same free clinic as a memorial to the board member's father who disappeared in 1930.

Then the doctor disappears after a confrontation with the anti-vaxxer and the hunt is on to find him. With Clare certain that the anti-vaxxer had show more nothing to do with the disappearance despite being the last to see the doctor and Russ investigating, the two are thrown together more than they should be since they are already denying their love for each other despite his wife and her vows.

There were numerous flashbacks to the events that led to the formation of the trust and the lives of the board member's parents which explain where the money came from and how it came to be that their four young children died of diphtheria.

This was an excellent entry into the series. I absolutely hurt for Clare and Russ and the difficult choices that they have to make in their personal lives. I also enjoyed the mysteries of the doctor's disappearance and the disappearance of the board member's father. show less

"Out Of The Deep I Cry" links Clare, our modern-day ex-army helicopter pilot turned Episcopalian Priest and Russ our local boy returned to be sheriff after a little too long in the army, more closely to the past of the small town of Miller's Kill, New York.

As with the previous books, "Out Of The Deep I Cry" manages to link the investigation of a crime to a topical issue, in this case, the inoculation of children. It then goes a step further and links the fates of the current Miller's Kill generation with the trials faced by their grandparents, when diphtheria was killing children, when inoculation was new and not widely accepted and when rural New York was the main route for smuggling illegal alcohol to New York City.

While I enjoyed show more the cleverness of the mysteries in the plot and how they were resolved, what struck me most was how the actions of previous generations can seem so long ago yet still have impacts and echoes in the daily lives of their descendants. I was impressed that the story of the previous generation was told with the same clarity and authenticity as the modern-day story.

Julia Spencer-Fleming managed to weave the two timelines together in ways that were easy to follow and which made both stories stronger. In the process, she set out the dilemmas faced by parents trying to do the best by their children, without being judgemental.pencer

There is a lot of grief in this book, some of which has been carried for a long time. I admired the way that grief was respected and understood rather than being exploited. It kept the book human and it kept the emotions high.

The relationship between Clare and Russ continues to grow and to cause both of them pleasure and guilt. This too is handled with empathy and without ducking the moral issues involved.

It seems to me that this series is getting stronger as it goes along. I'm looking forward to reading the next book.
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Julia Spencer-Fleming has dished up a double mystery, decades apart, in this the third book in the Clare Fergusson/Russ Alstyne mystery series. And by the end, I was looking for extra helpings. This series is getting better and better.

In 1930, Jonathan Ketcham’s wife, Jane, went to the police to report her husband missing. Search as they may, he was never found and Jane went on to raise her only child, Solace, by herself.

Fast forward to the present and the good Reverend Clare is dealing with a large and unsightly leaking roof in the church. The question is do we do an inexpensive temporary repair or the much more expensive, historically accurate restoration? And if we opt for the expensive overhaul, where would the money come from? In show more steps Trustee Lacey Marshall, whose mother, Jane Ketcham, left an endowment for the operation of a local free clinic for those w/o health insurance. She can use her judgment as to whether or not to continue the clinic or transfer the funds to another charitable clause and she would like to fix the leaky roof. Upon notification of the impending loss of funding, the clinic’s head, Dr. Rouse, suddenly disappears.

There you have it: two missing persons, over eighty years apart, yet connected. It’s up to Police Chief Russ Alstyne (and of course Clare because, well, that’s what she does) to solve the present day crime while at the same time, uncovering the mystery behind the disappearance of Jonathan Ketcham.

I am really enjoying this series and have to say that the author’s excellent narrative style, character development, and deftly construed, multi-layered plot, weaving past and present, kept me furiously turning pages. Highlighted by a confrontation with a gun-wielding distraught wife and a dicey escape from drowning, we are, of course, left high and dry as to the romance that continues to kindle, whetting my appetite for the next installment. Highly recommended. show less

First Line: Russ Van Alstyne had just gotten a tug on his line when he saw the old lady get up from between the headstones she had been trimming, lay down her gardening tools, and walk into the reservoir.

A section of the St. Alban's Episcopal Church roof is ready to collapse, and the chances of getting it repaired look bleak until Mrs. Marshall decides to break the trust created by her mother. Instead of helping to fund the free clinic, the money from the trust will allow St. Alban's costly repairs to be done.

Losing a bit of its funding turns out to be the least of the troubles facing the Millers Kill Free Clinic because its doctor goes missing and a local woman seems to be the best suspect in town. Reverend Clare Fergusson finds show more herself investigating Dr. Rouse's disappearance alongside Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. What Clare and Russ don't realize is just how helpful Clare's volunteer work at the historical society is going to be. This case has long roots that go all the way back to the Prohibition era, and it's going to take everything Clare and Russ have got to untangle them to get at the truth.

I do love books that combine a current mystery with one that occurred in the past, and Julia Spencer-Fleming has created a marvelous one here. Chapters take the reader back to the 1930s when Mrs. Marshall's father disappeared without a trace, to the 1950s when her mother created the trust for the clinic, and even to 1970 when the young Russ Van Alstyne has his very first brush with the mystery.

Once again the author leads us through life in a small town. To those of us who have lived in one, it will seem as though we've gone home for a visit. To those who haven't, they can see it through the eyes of the Reverend Clare Fergusson, who, as a newcomer, is a rank amateur when it comes to dealing with a village gossip mill. The importance of a small town clinic is also outlined by showing us what happens when its doctor goes missing, and by how and why a local woman can campaign against having children receive immunizations to prevent disease.

When all was revealed at the end, I had to shake my head. All the clues were there, but I was so engrossed with the story and its characters that I didn't even think to tease out those threads of clues so that I could ponder them. If you like your books to be character rich, then you have to read these books by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Clare (a priest) and Russ (a married man) are two of the best characters in crime fiction, and the fact that they are two honorable people falling deeply in love with each other adds an extraordinary poignancy to each book.

Yes, these books can be read as standalones, but I would strongly advise against reading them as such. Yes, the stories are exceptional, but characters like Clare and Russ are like the rarest of pearls. You're going to want to collect them all. show less

In 1924, Jane and Jonathan Ketchem's four children died of diptheria. In 1930 Jonathan disappeared. Jane donated property to the town of Miller's Kill to fund a medical clinic in his memory.

In the present time, the doctor running the clinic also disappears. Chief Russ van Alstyne is investigating, and Rev. Clare Fergusson is intruding.

The first half of the book is a little slow as the stories develop. The stories are linked when elderly Mrs. Marshall, the fifth child of Jane and Jonathan Ketchem and a member of Clare's church, decides to withdraw the support of her mother's trust from the clinic in order to meet the church's urgent need for roof repairs. Clare learns more about Mrs. Marshall's family history, including Jonathan's show more disappearance, while investigating aspects of the current case. She wonders why the four children had to die, and where Jane Ketchem got the money to fund the clininc, send her surviving daughter to college, and establish the trust. The heartbreaking links between these questions, and the connections between the old and new cases, come together as the pace picks up in the latter part of the book.

The author does a nice job of connecting story elements but not beating the reader over the head with the connections. The two voices Clare hears at times, those of her grandmother and her Army drill instructor, help to illuminate how she makes decisions. The relationship between Clare and Russ develops nicely and remains credibly tense. A very good read once you get past the somewhat slow beginning. show less

This one starts with a leaky roof at St. Alban's Episcopal Church. Clare is the new pastor. When the vestry gets together to figure out how to fix a problem they have been debating for a number of years, Clare is surprised to learn that one of the vergers is Mrs. Lacey Marshall who controls a trust that she can liquidate as she wishes. Currently the trust is funding a free clinic that is named for her father. If she liquidates it and donates it to the church for roof repair, that will cut into the clinic's funding.

Clare has just become aware of the clinic. She passed it by one day on her way to volunteer for the historical society and walked into the middle of a very small protest. Debba Clow is protesting because she believes her son show more became autistic after receiving a vaccination at the clinic. Dr. Allen Rouse has been running the clinic for more than 30 years. He began after Mrs. Ketchum, Mrs. Marshall's mother, paid his way through medical school and his residency.

This story has a number of flashbacks going back to the 1920s and 1930s and tracks the story of Mrs. Ketchum whose first contact with the police was when her husband Jonathan went missing. It also has a brief flashback to when young Russ Van Alstyne saved Mrs. Ketchum from drowning herself just before he went off to join the Army. The flashbacks tell about the loss of four of the Ketchum's children to diphtheria within days of each other in 1924. It talks about rumrunners and the buying up of lots of farmland, including the Ketchums, to put in a flood control reservoir.

These stories all weave together and come to a head when Dr. Rouse goes missing and Debba Clow becomes a suspect in his disappearance. Meanwhile, people have begun talking about Russ Van Alstyne and Clare's relationship even though they are trying to be above board and open about their friendship. Both are still in denial that they love each other since he's a very married man.

This story was intriguing and suspenseful. It is a great addition to an already strong series. show less