In the Bleak Midwinter

 

 

Last month, I reviewed what turns out to be the 10^th book in the Fergusson/Van Alstyne mystery series by Julia Spencer-Fleming, At Midnight Comes the Cry. It was an excellent story with strong characters and a good plot, so I chose to go back to the beginning of the series and see if my enthusiasm for the author would hold up and allow me to read the entire series. Good news, the first book, In the Bleak of Midwinter, did not let me down. 

We are introduced to the two protagonists, Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne. Fergusson is a newly minted Episcopal priest who has landed at a parish in Miller’s Kill, a small town in upstate New York. She is an unmarried woman who retired from the Army where she was a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. Van Alstyne is the police chief of the small police force in Miller’s Kill. The author, for her first book, she used the name of a poem and Christmas carol for the title of this story that took place during the midwinter in upstate New York, much of the action occurring during a blizzard for which Fergusson was very poorly prepared. A newborn baby had been left on the doorstep of her church where there just happened to be a couple that had been desperately searching for a baby to adopt. But then, the mother was found murdered, and so the mystery evolved with a great cast of supporting characters.

 

So, my excitement about this author and the series will at least get me to the third book, A Fountain filled with Blood, which I hope to acquire very shortly.