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To Darkness and to Death (Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries) [Audio Cassette]

Julia Spencer-Fleming (Author), Suzanne Toren (Narrator)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)

Price: $79.95 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
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Book Description

June 2005 Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries
Saturday, November 14, 5:00 A.M.

In the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill, an old lumberman sits in the dark with his gun across his knees. Not far away, an unemployed logger sleeps off his bender from the night before. The owner of the town's last paper mill tosses in his bed. And a young woman, one of three heirs to the 250,000-acre Great Camp, wakes alone in darkness, bound and gagged.
Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne wants nothing more than a quiet day of hunting in the mountains on his fiftieth birthday. His wife needs to have the town's new luxury resort ready for its gala opening night. The Reverend Clare Fergusson expects to spend the day getting St. Alban's Church ready for the bishop's annual visit. Her long-distance suitor from New York expects some answers about their relationship during his weekend in town.

In Millers Kill, where everyone knows everyone and all are part of an interconnected web of blood or acquaintance, one person's troubles have a way of ensnaring others. What begins as a simple case of a woman lost in the woods leads to a tangle of revenge, blackmail, assault, kidnapping, and murder. As the hours tick by, Russ and Clare struggle to make sense of their town's plunge into chaos---and their own chaotic emotions.

Something terrible waits in the ice-rimed mountains cradling Millers Kill. Something that won't be content with just one death---or two. . .

Julia Spencer-Fleming continues her moving story of the way a small town, as well as a great city, can harbor evil, and the struggle of two honest people to deal with the ever-present threat of their feelings for one another.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Set during a single day, Agatha-winner Spencer-Fleming's explosive fourth mystery (after 2004's Out of the Deep I Cry) takes Rev. Clare Fergusson and Millers Kill, N.Y., police chief Russ Van Alstyne far from the tranquility offered by the Anglican services of morning prayer, Order for Noonday and Evensong. A phone call at 5:15 on a cold November morning leads Clare—ex-army helicopter pilot and rector of St. Alban's Episcopal Church—to join the local search and rescue team to look for the missing sister of recluse Eugene van der Hoeven, head of the 250,000-acre Haudenosaunee estate. On a day when she should be at St. Alban's preparing for the bishop's annual visit, Clare finds herself involved with Russ in an investigation involving brutal beatings, kidnapping and murder. As the day unfolds, Clare and Russ are compelled to examine their own relationship when the diocesan deacon arrives early to discuss a "serious matter" with Clare. Given her seminary training and her army background, it's not surprising that Clare deals with all that comes her way with energy, expertise, sensitivity and humor. Spencer-Fleming has brought alive the people and environs of Millers Kill in another riveting mystery.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson should be preparing for the bishop's annual visit, but she is called to join the Millers Kill, New York, Search and Rescue Squad to look for Millicent van der Hoeven, who disappeared in the woods the previous evening. Millicent and her siblings were about to sell their childhood home and the surrounding land to a company that, in turn, was planning to lease it to the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. Did Millicent lose her way, or was she kidnapped to postpone the sale, which would adversely affect a local lumbering operation? Blackmail and possible ecoterrorism complicate matters as Clare works with Sheriff Russ Van Alstyne, with whom she enjoys an ambiguously platonic relationship. -Spencer-Fleming makes effective use of her vividly realized Adirondack setting, and she keeps the story moving at a good clip, although the connections between some events stretch credulity a bit. The fourth installment in a satisfying series. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Audio Cassette
  • Publisher: Sound Library (June 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0792735471
  • ISBN-13: 978-0792735472
  • Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.1 x 2.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,772,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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. Visit her on the Web at www.juliaspencerfleming.com

 

Customer Reviews

35 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (12)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (35 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A rich mystery tale full of dramatic irony, June 24, 2005
By 
Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
Julia Spencer-Fleming's mystery series set in the town of Millers Kill, New York has already won rave reviews, awards, and legions of fans. TO DARKNESS AND TO DEATH, its fourth installment, should bring even more accolades to this deserving series.

Spencer-Fleming's main characters are Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne. As the two inevitably get drawn into solving mysteries in their small town, they also have developed an undeniable romantic attraction. The only problem? Clare is the town's Episcopal priest while Russ is Millers Kill's older, married police chief. The moral complexities of the pair's attraction to each other add a thought-provoking dimension to the series' excellent character development and exquisite plotting.

In TO DARKNESS AND TO DEATH, both Russ and Clare's relationship, and Spencer-Fleming's storytelling skills, are taken to the next level. The author takes the risky move of setting the novel's entire action in a single day, switching rapidly from character to character as she tells her story, often revealing events only through a series of overlapping perspectives. The result is a tale that is rich in dramatic irony, as the reader soon becomes aware of mistaken identities, lies, and misunderstandings that are unapparent to the characters, who do not have the benefit of these multiple perspectives. Despite making the reader feel all-knowing, though, Spencer-Fleming still has some tricks up her sleeves, and will almost certainly still manage to surprise most readers somewhere along the way.

Like other books in the series, this latest installment touches on environmental issues and on small-town politics. This time, a large estate occupied by a mysterious, reclusive burn victim is about to be sold to a large corporation and managed by the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. The impact on the area's hunters, not to mention its logging companies and paper manufacturers, will be significant. It seems that every businessperson in town has a stake in the future of the land, and that some will go to great lengths to protect their own interests.

Spencer-Fleming has a good understanding of small-town life, and TO DARKNESS AND TO DEATH underscores many of her themes. All the characters seem related in multiple ways, connections that can provide support but also complications. Near the end of the novel, Russ Van Alstyne reflects, "It's true... We are all related. If not by blood, then by bonds we don't even realize. Until they're gone." In her mysteries, Spencer-Fleming offers not only good stories, but also reflections into the nature of human connections and the human heart.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite Tension Throughout, September 5, 2006
By 
Teresa Bennett "Wordsmith" (Stanwood,, WA United States) - See all my reviews
Julia Spencer-Fleming treads a fine line between professional respect and deep passion in her wonderful series featuring Russ Van Alstyne and Clare Fergusson. Like all really accompished series writers, she keeps her readers initimately involved in the struggles of her characters while continuing to create plausible circumstances for an Episcopal priest and small town police chief to be working to solve crimes together. This series has a brilliant take on sense of place, almost as if it were a third character. Well worth recommending.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Where Are Claire and Russ????, September 11, 2005
I have enjoyed this series since the beginning. There is something very unique about Spencer-Fleming's style. She writes her dialogue in a very natural tone. Her characters are well-developed and interesting. The mysteries are challenging without being too complex to figure out.

That said, I have to say this is my least favorite book of the series. I agree with other reviewers on one major point. Russ and Claire are in the background way too much. At one point, there is something like 128 pages between scenes of them together. In that space, there is very little story involving either of them at all. This was very disappointing.

The story itself was not terribly interesting and I found myself having to reread portions just to remember who was who. Honestly, I skipped over many parts because it just got boring and tedious to read. Had Spencer-Fleming used characters we already knew, this might have been a better story. However, she brought in many new characters, of which maybe only one or two were even likable.

The scenes between Claire and Russ were excellent as usual but there just weren't enough of them.

With her first three books, Spencer-Fleming quickly became one of my favorite authors. She still is dispite this disappointing installment. I hope in the next book, the focus is back on the characters that have made me want to continue this series in the first place.

I can't name one author of a series who does not have at least one book that doesn't live up to the rest of the series. Hopefully this will be the only one.

I still recommend this book to her readers in order to keep up on the Russ/Claire storyline.
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