Julia Spencer-Fleming, “One Was a Soldier”

If there’s a writer who can credibly manage the issue-based murder mystery, that writer is Julia Spencer-Fleming — but it’s a project fraught with difficulty. We read murder mysteries to escape. That doesn’t mean they all have to be set in England between the wars and to star old ladies in flowered hats. But the fiction must operate as a coherent alternative reality, and the problem comes when you sense your author manipulating the storytelling in order to make a point. Late in One Was a Soldier, a character says, “Your little burg’s not a military town, that’s true, but it’s the kind of town where the military comes from. Small, rural, not much opportunity, right? How many of your young people join up to get away?” Julia Spencer-Fleming calls herself an army brat, so she knows the ways of the military. What’s more, those of us who’ve read this wonderful series surely do so partly because her portrayal of small-town upstate New York feels so authentic; “the kind of town where the military comes from.” My problem with One Was  Soldier was that it felt ever so slightly schematic.

Spencer-Fleming’s unifying device is a veterans’ support group, led by a therapist named Sarah who is never granted much of a character: she’s really a fly on the wall. The veterans in the group represent various branches of the service, socioeconomic groups, and kinds of damage suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan; young Will, a former track star, lost his legs to an IED. Trip Stillman, an orthopedist at the local hospital, suffered traumatic brain injury. And that rangy helicopter pilot in black — why, that’s the Reverend Clare Fergusson, back from 18 months flying a helicopter and addicted to a mess of substances.

Of course once the story’s under way, everything is fine. Clare and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne pick up where they left off, in their  sexually charged and emotionally plausible romance. Spencer-Fleming’s done a great job of keeping them apart but that can’t last forever, so I was thrilled with the way she’s invented a new romance between two youngsters in the Millers Kill Police Department, the hottie Hadley Knox and red-haired rookie Kevin Flynn. I was absorbed in the plot until, around halfway through, I realized that no crime had occurred yet. But I was wrong — Spencer-Fleming is very good at this, and she’d gotten the criminal proceedings under way while ostensibly focusing on the veterans’ therapy group.

And one thing that’s consistently admirable about these books is that, though they are entertaining, Spencer-Fleming doesn’t flinch away from the hard stuff. Clare has flashbacks. Young Will Ellis has to adjust to a harsher future. Attractive characters die. I can see why the author was drawn to this material and she handles it as well as anyone could.  The effects of war on a town like Millers Kill are as real as the effects of the weather or the faltering economy. And if Julia Spencer-Fleming wants to use her fiction to draw our attention to an all-too-real issue, in the end I have to admire the way she does it.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, “I Shall Not Want”

Uh-oh. I’m getting to the end of the series.

You know the feeling: There’s only one left?  And it’s not coming out for a month? That’s where I am with Julia Spencer-Fleming. I read faster than she writes.

On the other hand, if she didn’t take so much care writing her books they wouldn’t be so good. That’s just the deal. The balance between mystery/puzzle and character would not be so well-calibrated. The introduction of new characters not so interesting. The exploration of the setting not so rich.

It’s the latter quality that particularly struck me in I Shall Not Want. Mysteries must take place in a small community in order to limit the pool of suspects. Hence nun mysteries, country house murders, small-town crime series. If you’re lucky, as a writer you get to produce a series of these works and then your challenge is inventing your bad guy. Is he a home-grown case? Or does he come from Outside? This time around, the threat is external.

It turns out that there are Mexican farm workers in upstate New York. We are introduced to this notion by Rev. Clare Fergusson’s discussion with a feisty nun. Naturally our hotheaded rector drags St. Alban’s into a ministry to the migrants, annoying some of her vestry members. And naturally a dead body is found and the investigative spotlight turns on the aliens, legal and illegal. Naturally also Russ van Alstyne, as chief of police, spearheads the investigation and it all seems perfectly plausible. If there’s a whiff of the “issue novel” it’s minor. Spencer-Fleming is comfortable with letting awkward truths hang before us. (In fact the upcoming novel, One Was a Soldier, centers on Iraq war veterans.) Spencer-Fleming is also, it turns out, comfortable writing sex scenes. She must have decided she’d spun out the tension long enough, and her protagonists Clare and Russ finally get some satisfaction. If that weren’t enough, she introduces a new female recruit to the Millers Kill Police Department and sparks fly there, as well. It’s a smart move. Keeping things interesting among the secondary characters is an essential element of retaining readers’ interest over the span of a series. I know I’m not alone in waiting for more.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, “All Mortal Flesh”

I love Extra-Strength Excedrin. Is there even a regular strength? Somehow I think not, but I am always reassured by the idea that the pills in the green bottle are going to work extra hard to get rid of that headache.

Sometimes readers need Extra-Strength Diversion. The precise recipe probably differs for each of us but in the last couple of days I’ve wanted a combination of distraction and reassurance that I reliably find in murder mysteries. Bonus points go to good murder mysteries that are new to me. My ability to re-read with satisfaction what is supposed to be a suspenseful genre just supports my conviction that the crime and its solution is secondary. In fact, as I read All Mortal Flesh I realized that it’s exactly the artificiality of the mystery genre that I find so satisfying. These are not real people. These are not normal situations. When I’m feeling a little shaky, I don’t want to immerse myself in lifelike drama. I want to know that Things Will Be OK.

But I do somehow still want a simulacrum of normalcy, which is why I’ve enjoyed Julia Spencer-Fleming’s novels. She pairs an Episcopal priest with an upstate New York police chief to solve crimes. This is the fifth book in the series so the level of mayhem for a rural area is getting implausibly high but that’s one of the things I overlook. I’m far more interested in the moral implications of the female priest and the married police chief falling for each other. Spencer-Fleming takes this seriously: Clare and Russ are deeply involved, emotionally, even though the relationship has remained chaste. Russ has neglected his marriage and we have considerable sympathy for his wife. What’s more this is a very small town and everybody knows what’s going on — or thinks they do. (Clare’s standing in the church hierarchy is iffy at best, and suffers from her rash behavior.)

As so often in this series, harsh weather plays a part

This would be an interesting source of conflict for a straight novel — but that wouldn’t be Extra-Strength Diversion. So in All Mortal Flesh the screws are tightened when both Russ and Clare become suspects in an especially disturbing murder case. Spencer-Fleming provides everything we need — plot twists, red herrings, action, final confrontation — and at the end of the novel peace has been restored. In the civic sense, that is: for Russ and Clare, the situation grows ever more complex, which just makes me want to read the next item in the series. Pretty clever.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, “To Darkness and to Death”

With so much anxiety during the holiday season — will Junior get home in the snow, does Aunt Tillie still like gingerbread, would hubby wear a bright green track suit and is he an XXL — it’s very soothing to have a well-constructed mystery to dive into. Thank you, Julia Spencer-Fleming, for taking my mind off the miserable state of the United Postal Service, etc. To Darkness and to Death, which features beatings, explosions, and logging machinery, was just the ticket. Once again, we’re in Millers Kill with the Rev. Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne. This time we actually meet Russ’s wife Linda who turns out to be a “pocket Venus.” Who knew Linda would be a hottie? Once more, Clare’s and Russ’s emotions move one step closer to conflagration while the two of them cooperate to solve a violent puzzle.

Of course Spencer-Fleming encounters the challenge implicit in her success. If you write good mysteries, there’s an audience for them, and you get to write more of them. However, with each volume in your series, you put more stress on your readers’ suspension of disbelief. Millers Kill, New York, an Adirondack hamlet, has been home to a disproportionate amount of mayhem. I’m fine with it — for now. And of course reading a series one after the other makes the basic premise seem especially incredible. But I do wonder how long this fiction can be maintained. (One possible answer: See Sue Grafton.)

My other quibble: in this volume, Spencer-Fleming dips into a style that reminds me of Jane Haddam, another mystery writer. The omniscient narrator jumps from the consciousness of one actor in the drama to another, and another as the tale unfolds.  There’s nothing wrong with this, per se. Maybe that is simply how the story needs to be told, but it’s not fresh, and that bothers me.

On the positive side: as ever, Spencer-Fleming manages the plotting dexterously. This time the mystery concerns the development of a tract of land near Millers Kill and the author lays out the competing interests even-handedly, showing how different outcomes threaten different constituencies and characters. Equally even-handed is the distribution of sympathy; no one is a complete bad guy, no one wears a halo. And as in the earlier books of the series, Spencer-Fleming threads the plot with the liturgy and moral concerns of the Episcopal church. Not only does this add heft to the books, but I bet Episcopalians are big mystery fans.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, “Out of the Deep I Cry”

Well, that was very satisfying. I was a little disappointed by Julia Spencer-Fleming’s A Fountain Filled with Blood, especially after the very strong start of her first book, In the Bleak Midwinter. But here she is on Book Three of her series, in fine fettle. Episcopal minister Clare Fergusson and small-town police chief Russ Van Alstyne are involved in another tricky situation with moral, legal, and spiritual ramifications. Guns are brandished, suspects interrogated, red herrings placed and discarded, physical damage is done, and more.

Let’s look at what Spencer-Fleming has to build into each book: a murder and its solution. Increasing romantic tension between Clare and Russ. Counter-tension presented by Russ’s marriage. Church background. Small-town background. And, about 85% of the way through the book, a direct confrontation with the bad guy. Mind you, not all mystery writers bother with that last step but I think the expectation is pretty much built in: I usually feel let down if it doesn’t happen.

All of these elements are present in Out of the Deep I Cry, locked into a mirroring structure that deepens their significance, for Spencer-Fleming starts with a flashback involving the teenaged Russ witnessing a very weird suicide attempt. Then chapters alternate, from “Then” to “Now,” elaborating the puzzle. Look for water: a leak in the church, a dam, river-rafting, a rainstorm, a flooded basement. Very clever. But at the same time, the plotting and writing are tight enough so that you’re carried along by the power of the story-telling. That’s why they call it “escape fiction.”

Julia Spencer-Fleming, “A Fountain Filled With Blood”

Oh, well. So much for the thrill of discovery. I was really excited when I read In the Bleak Midwinter, Julia Spencer-Fleming’s first mystery in this series. The character of the Reverend Clare Fergusson, rector of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Millers Kill, New York, is very appealing. But what totally hooked me was the sexual tension between Clare and the married but craggily attractive police chief, Russ Van Alstyne. Those features, mercifully, are still in place. But the plotting was not the best thing about In the Bleak Midwinter and it’s not the best thing about A Fountain Filled With Blood, either. In fact, it was a little bit clunky. A hefty portion of the book is taken up by the helicopter ride from hell (as if there could be any other kind… but this is really, really bad). And the helicopter is signaled as a plot point very early on — the gun that is shown in the first act, etc. etc. In fact maybe Spencer-Fleming needs to sow a few more red herrings, because I am usually pretty dim about plotting, and I identified this baddie quite early on. Worse, none of the potential killers was much more than a cartoon figure with a few unattractive characteristics. And while I’m complaining, I have a little trouble suspending disbelief when folks get as spectacularly bashed up as Clare and Russ do in this novel, without showing any lasting damage. Mind you, these quibbles will not prevent me from reading the next novel in the series. At some point, Clare will have to meet Russ’s wife, right? I want to be there.

Julia Spencer-Fleming, “In the Bleak Midwinter”

So at choir practice the other night I was talking to a friend about sublimation. Really. The soprano section was discussing Dorothy Sayers, and the moment in Gaudy Night when Harriet Vane, fiiiinally after soooo long, looks at the sleeping Lord Peter Wimsey and falls for him. Much ooh-ing and aah-ing and then we had to sing something in Latin for a while.

However, when the Latin was finished, Soprano I leaned over and said, “You’ve read Julia Spencer-Fleming, haven’t you? Because in those books, the heroine and the male love interest… well, it’s been six books and they’re still yearning. Oh, and she’s an Episcopal priest! You’d love these books! The titles are all quotations from hymns!”

Now I know that there are hundreds of thousands of readers who have no interest at all in a series of murder mysteries featuring a female Episcopal priest and her neighbor the police chief in an upstate New York hamlet. And for those people, the hymn-based titles will not be an additional draw. Nor will the fact that the Rev. Clare Fergusson came to the priesthood from the Army and knows cool ways to hurt bad people. (In one passage she reminded me of Lee Child‘s Reacher.) Even when I report that Spencer-Fleming is a terrific writer, these readers will remain unmoved.

Which is fine. Tastes differ. What’s more In the Bleak Midwinter, despite the ecclesiastical bells and whistles, is a pretty conventional murder mystery. This is not a startling departure like the work of Susan Hill or  Tana French. But here’s the deal: it takes at most a few hours to read a murder mystery and usually about a year to write one. You’ll notice the asymmetry. Gosh, I probably consume more than forty years’ worth of mystery-writing every year and, yes, that does alarm me somewhat. It also explains why I’m so pleased to find a new author.

Oh, the plot. Newborn baby left in box at church door, body of girl found in snowy ravine, Rev. Clare has the wrong clothes and car for upstate New York in November and by the way, the vestry hates her. And the police chief is married. For now.