Customer Reviews

In the Bleak Midwinter (A Rev. Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mystery)

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I couldn't read this book in one sitting--I do have a day job! And I didn't want to, either--because I didn't want the experience of reading it to end. "In the Bleak Midwinter" is one of the most skillfully crafted mysteries I've ever read: the plot is focused, and moves rapidly through the various personalities enmeshed in it: the priest, the police chief, the congregation, the tragic love story. It's notable, too, for the characters we DON'T meet but who hover over the action: the chief's wife and the dead young mother. And of course there's the snow, the never ending snow that keeps falling on the rural New York town, trapping the residents into small and predictable movements, underwhich lies great human passion and ambition.

The winter was a little less bleak when I reluctantly finished this extraordinary reading experience. Read it.

This series is so great that I want everyone to know about it. There are 4 books in the series out now and another on the way in October. If you love Margaret Maron, Earlene Fowler, Elizabeth George, Elizabeth Peters or any great mystery, buy this.
The setting is small-town upstate New York in the Adirondacks somewhere between Albany and Saratoga. Everyone knows everyone and their business in a burg of only 8,000 souls. The heroine is an novice Episcopalian priest from Virginia and DC in her first posting, Clare Fergusson and our hero, Russ VanAlstyne, is the Chief of Police.
Don't be put off by the religious bent of Clare. She is devoutly liberal and free-thinking much to her Bishop's dismay and a champion of the downtrodden. Unfortunately, she is completely out of her element in Millers Kill, NY. (Kill is a Dutch derivative meaning a stream that runs into a river, in this case, Millers Kill runs into the Hudson.)
In Clare's capacity as priest, she is thrown into murder and mayhem and meets Russ VanAlstyne, the "older-by-14 years" Chief of Police and agnostic. Despite the philosophical differences, Clare and Russ find they are kindred spirits in having shared careers in the Army; Russ in Vietnam, Clare in Desert Storm and Africa and they fall passionately in love. There's only one catch - of course - he's married; and not even that unhappily.
This dynamic continues throughout the series and I'm dying to know how this will evolve. Clare is consumed with guilt and bound and determined to keep her vow of celibacy until she is married and Russ is just as determined to keep his vows of marriage. And then there is the religious angle - Clare is the eternal optimist who looks for the good in everyone and every situation and that just plays so well off Russ, the archetype of jaded, world-weary and cynical cop who can't imagine a god who would let such horrible things happen to his creation.
The topics are all meaty: homosexuality, illegitimacy and abandoned babies, loggers and timber "harvesting" and development vs. environmentalists all set agaist the backdrop of the general deshabile and poverty that befalls an former industrial boomtown struggling to find its way in today's economy by catering to tourists.
Add to the mix a clever, original plot that really MOVES, a cast of interesting characters that recur in all books in the series and you have a SUPERB night of reading curled up in your comfiest favorite place! I couldn't put any of these books down and I can't wait for the next one in October.
I won't go into the storyline because others have done. I urge you to buy this book and give yourself a GREAT treat - a mystery series as good as this is very rare and believe me: I've read 'em all!

I am always looking for a new mystery series, so I had high hopes for "In the Bleak Midwinter" because of all the great reviews. The writing is good and the book is fast-paced. Unfortunately, the characters and their actions (and therefore, the plot) are just plain silly! Claire, the brand new Epsicopal priest in Miller's Kill, finds a baby on the church steps and in the process meets Russ, the unchurched police chief. After that, all bets are off. Russ lets Claire ride around in the police cruiser one night and they find a dead body. Claire rushes hither and yon in a frenzied state, with no thought to consequences, and practically takes over the investigation from Russ. In the meantime, Russ casts lamely about, acting as if he has never run an actual homicide investigation and never met a "real" woman like Claire (he is married to one of those "silly" women who make frilly curtains and don't understand their men). In the meantime, Claire figures it all out. Really?

My questions are: How did bumbling Russ ever manage before Claire showed up? Why didn't competent Claire become a homicide detective instead of priest since she is so interested in solving mysteries? Why the creepy underlying sexual tension between the two of them? Why do Claire and Russ have dinner alone twice while Russ's wife is out of town? (This is a small town, you two. Get a grip!) Why does Russ let an unqualified person go with him on police rounds to begin with, and once there is an actual crime as serious as murder, why does he continue to let her go with him to interview witnesses and arrest perps? A married police chief and a woman priest as a crime fighting duo/possible couple just doesn't work for me.

"It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby." This grabber of an opening line sets the scene. A newborn baby is left on the back steps of St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Millers Kill, New York on a bitter November night.

The tightly woven story features Clare Fergusson, a newly hatched, unorthodox Episcopal priest and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne who have more in common than you would think. Murders take place that seem to be linked with the baby's abandonment and the upper class parishioners of St. Albans.

The omnipresent star of the book is the weather. In this Adirondack community right on the Vermont border, the oncoming winter is a living thing that is ignored at one's peril. Ms. Spencer-Fleming is deft in drawing both interiors and exteriors. She broadens the dimensions of her characters in describing how they live, what they like to have around them, and how they cope with the brutal winters that are part and parcel of their landscape. Some of the townspeople have a "winter rat," a beat up, barely serviceable car they use when the weather and roads are so tough, the road salt eats up the undercarriages and driving is one controlled skid after another.

"In the Bleak Midwinter" is just short of a "cozy" with its budding romance between the sheriff and the priest and its delightful warm interior scenes. Clare could use a crash course in detecting. There are a couple of times this otherwise sensible lady goes into the "absolutely stupid heroine routine" usually depicted by a young lady who hears suspicious noises in a gloomy mansion in the dead of night. Does she call the cops, scream her head off, or hide under the covers like any sane person would do? No, she creeps around in the dark in her bare feet and nightgown, and then (surprise! surprise!) something GRABS her. Clare is not this bad, but almost. She tears off to suspicious, lonely places all by herself, without informing anybody in a sports car lamentably unsuited to a blizzard and dressed as if she is going on errand in New York City on a temperate autumn day. Be that as it may, Clare is immensely likeable. The author handles her strong religious faith expertly; it works naturally without being cloying or moralistic.

The book is a page-turner, well plotted, and the issues are never silly or contrived. I am looking forward to Ms. Spencer-Fleming's next book.

In the Bleak Midwinter kept me reading straight through; I found the characters interesting and the plot moved quickly with little twists and turns that really kept my interest. I want to hear more about the Rev. Clare!

What a suberb debut.
If you don't ache to look for more of Spencer-Fleming's work after this, I would be greatly surprised.
The main relationship between Clare Ferguson, Episcopal priest and Russ Van Alstyne, Sheriff of Millers Kill, NY, is the main focus of this novel. Through the next several books in the series it evolves
slowly and wonderfully.
As does Clare's experiences as an Episcopal priest and
with her dealings with the people of Millers Kill.
If you know Carol O'Connell's brilliant work,her
"Mallory" novels, then you will know what calibur of
author
Spencer-Fleming is.
These are no light-weight, breezy books.
These are lean and literate novels.
I think I picked up "In The Bleak Midwinter"
at the library. I was simply blown away.
What an intriguing character is Clare.
Caring Priest, gritty ex-army pilot and all woman.
She is one of the most singular characters in mystery
today.
The religious aspect doesn't overwhelm the book.
If that aspect may not appeal to you, I can
tell you it doesn't overwhelm the stories at all. It only
inhances them.
The mystery here is wonderfully involving.
I could tell you all about the process of the mystery, but I
hate when reviewers do that.
Just know that the action is fantastic. Clare is no shrinking violet.
And the lead characters of Clare and Russ are great.
Un-put-downable.

Julia Spencer-Fleming ROCks.

In the Bleak Midwinter (2002)
A Fountain Filled With Blood (2003)
Out of the Deep I Cry (2004)
To Darkness and to Death (2005)
All Mortal Flesh (coming Oct. 3, 2006)

As an Episcopal priest myself, I felt like taking notes on all the technical mistakes she made -- including a) (as one reviewer points out) imagining that a priest in his or her right mind would go to the house of a parishioner of the opposite sex and have dinner when the spouse was out of town -- talk about boundary issues! -- or b) not knowing that the lay leader of an Episcopal parish is called the Senior Warden -- or c) apparently believing (falsely) that newly-called Episcopal priests announce to congregations (or their vestries) what ministry the priest has selected for that congregation to do -- it just doesn't work that way -- etc. etc. etc. If you're going to write a mystery where the detective is a firefighter, you need to spend time in a firehouse and really get to know the place well -- likewise, if your detective is an Episcopal priest, you need to know a fair amount about the Episcopal church. Any priest who showed so little discretion in a relationship with a parishioner would get called into the bishop's office for a little chat and find him or herself with a lot of explaining to do.

That having been said, this mystery was well-written sylistically and the plotting was pretty good. It passed the "keep wanting to get back to this book" test very well, and the author created a sense of place very well. I look forward to reading other books by this author. For a first mystery, there was a lot of talent evident in this book.

In her acknowledgements, Julia Spencer-Fleming thanks a number of people who vetted her manuscript. I find it hard to believe that not one of them said, "Julia Dear, I don't think a cop would tell a witness inside information about a case, and then lamely tell that witness to please not repeat what he told her." Not only does the Chief of Police in this otherwise interesting first mystery blab his head off inappropriately, he tells people stuff he doesn't even know for sure is true. For instance, he tells everyone he talks to that the dead woman is the mother of the foundling when the DNA tests haven't come back yet.
He's also always going off and interviewing people without a second cop in attendance. Probably not standard procedure. And what's with the reliance of phones to contact people he simply must talk to? It never seems to occur to him to tell one of his underlings to get out of the station and track people down in person.

This is one of those books that starts off well, with an interesting premise, and then goes south into the land of improbability. What I don't understand is the plethora of awards, the lavish praise, for what is a good job for a first effort, but that isn't in the same league as Grafton, Rankin, or James. I think those authors actually spend time talking to cops. Ms. Spencer-Fleming might consider that before she starts her next book.

Although this was a book I didn't want to put down and I like the independent portrayal of the female priest....I take exception to some of the things she did.

As an Episcopalian I don't know of any priest in their right mind who would go to dinner at the house of a person of the opposite sex when their spouse is out of town. Or, for that matter, after only 4 or 5 weeks on the job, accuse two of their parishioners of murder. Or, as a person with survival training going off half-cocked & ill-equipped in the middle of a blizzard to an unknown mountain top without letting anyone know where she was going.

I'm anxious to read more about Clare Fergusson to see if she wises up.

I found Reverend Clare totally annoying. She had no business playing (fairly stupid) cop; the supposed sexual tension was way out of line. Single young female priest do not hang around endlessly alone with a married man. The amount of dinners and rides she had with the lonesome police chief would have her booted out of a small town parish in a flash. Couldn't they just have a platonic friendship? Her constant meddling in the murder case was laughable, her near demise, ridiculous. The writing style was okay but it wasn't enough to make me like this book. A very medium effort.