Friday Forgotten (or Overlooked) Book: ONE WAS A SOLDIER by Julia Spencer-Fleming / Small Town Cops and Sheriffs Day

(I re-worked this review from 2011 because no matter how hard I tried I couldn't think of a book featuring a small town cop that I might have read in the past (though I know there are several) and I couldn't find on my shelves a book that takes place in a small town and features a local cop, except for the mysteries of Julia Spencer Fleming. I'm sure there are  several others here somewhere but they are obviously in hiding. OR they disappeared when I moved.)

It is difficult to review a book that is part of an on-going series featuring characters I've grown to know and have a great deal of affection for. The difficulty is this: How much do I tell about these characters and their present situation which has been slowly built up (by the author) over the previous six books?

ONE WAS A SOLDIER is the seventh entry in a series which, in its debut book won just about every literary prize available. It is in many respects, a brilliant series because it manages what many of these sorts of books do not: it sustains the on-going tension, suspense and interest on a high level from book to book. The series is set in a small upstate New York town in the Adirondacks, the fictional Miller's Kill, where it always seems to be cold, snowy, windy and damp. Needless to say, the weather adds enormously to the atmosphere of the stories. The two main protagonists of ONE WAS A SOLDIER are the pragmatic Desert Storm vet and Chief of Police, Russ Van Alstyne and the Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson. She is an enigmatic, no-nonsense helicopter pilot, vet of the Iraqi war and a current Major in the National Guard.

As far as the citizens and church-goers of  Miller's Kill are concerned, Clare was a curiosity from the first. And in many ways it isn't until recently that she appears to have found firmer footing within the town; many of whose inhabitants are themselves veterans or families of veterans.

As the series begins (IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER 2002), Chief Van Alstyne is happily married to Linda, a woman about whom we learn a bit more as the books progress though early on she remains offstage. She is self-employed making drapery and curtains to order for local businesses.

But there is an immediate attraction between Clare and Russ, as she, the newly appointed priest of St. Albans, arrives in town in the middle of winter in her her totally impractical red sports car. She is as different from Russ's petitely beautiful little wife as night to day. Clare is tall, physically imposing and a woman used to doing for herself after years as an Armed Forces helicopter pilot. The reader and the characters know that this unwelcome attraction can never be acted upon. There is nowhere the attraction can go and so in this first book, Clare herself distances herself from the Chief of Police.

Russ and Clare are realistically drawn honorable people and their attraction must necessarily remain in the background, lurking about but not allowed to take over. It is in the tension generated by this attraction that the books' foundation lies. I wait to know what's going to happen, year to year, book to book, as the attraction deepens and the story of these two troubled souls progresses.

So I don't want to reveal too much about what has led to the present status of events, though if you read this book first, you'll figure it out immediately and then, I assume, want to go back and begin at the beginning. That's happened to me before with a series - it's not the end of the world. It's occasionally helps in certain series to know what's happened before to the two main characters. I don't mind this when the characters are written strong and capture my undivided attention.

ONE WAS A SOLDIER is centered primarily on the rough times that veterans - Clare included - often have upon their return to civilian life. When Clare comes home from her recent tour of duty flying combat helicopters - she's been gone a year and a half as the book begins - she is beset with post traumatic stress and turns to her leftover stash of pills brought back from Iraq, downed usually with alcohol. Clare, despite her calling, is not immune to the pressures brought about by disturbing memories of war.

Feeling herself losing control, Clare joins four other veterans in a support group. We get to meet those survivors, each with their own individual and very moving problems. When one of the group dies, Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne is convinced it's a suicide. But Clare and the other vets are not so sure and decide to conduct their own investigation. What they eventually discover may link events in Baghdad with the town's wealthy real estate impresario and chief employer, a vile man who is also Clare and Russ's nemesis from a previous book.

I won't say too much more about the actual story only because, as I said, I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't read it yet and are not familiar with what's been happening to Clare and Russ in Miller's Kill, New York.

Author Julia Spencer-Fleming reveals the story from several viewpoints and moves a secondary romantic entanglement to the front burner, woven in with the stories of the returned vets. My only problem with this technique is that I've never been fond of varying viewpoints. But I like these books so much, I will tolerate it from this author. I'm also not liking the woman cop involved in the secondary romance - she just isn't a very likable person - the author needs to take care of this in the next book, I think. Unless she's going someplace else with this story line.

In general, Spencer-Fleming gets to the nitty-gritty of what makes these complex characters tick. These people 'live' in the imagination from one book to the next. You leave them each time, mystery solved, but feeling: okay, what's going to happen next? My opinion is that this is one of the best series out there and you're really missing something special if you're not reading it.

But - as I said earlier, BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING. Though if you don't, the world won't come to an end. Look, just read these books any which way you like, they are damn good.

Julia's Fantastic Fiction page listing all the books in the series.

Since it's Friday, don't forget to check in at Edgar Award nominated author Patricia Abbott at her blog, Pattinase, to see what other forgotten or overlooked books other bloggers are talking about today.

Four Books I Must Read or Curl Up and Die

Ha! Just kidding. (I think.) But these are the four newly released books I am most anxious to read just as soon as I can. If only the people ahead of me on the library list would hurry up and finish their copies, all would be well. In the meantime, I content myself reading other smasheroo books, i.e. KRAKEN by China Mieville, which I am liking very much and which was part of my Santa Christmas loot.

THE SENTRY by Robert Crais. I am always ready to read any Robert Crais book, but most especially his series featuring L.A. private detective Elvis Cole and his enigmatic friend, Joe Pike. THE SENTRY is the third in the Joe Pike series begun with THE WATCHMAN, extended with last year's superb THE FIRST RULE and now I hear THE SENTRY is equally superb. The original series from Elvis Cole's point of view began way back when with THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT. (A series that should be read in order, most especially in the begining up until L.A. Requiem.) Read more about Robert Crais tomorrow when I write my Letter C post for the Crime Fiction Alphabet Challenge 2011.

FADEAWAY GIRL by Martha Grimes. I've read every DCI Richard Jury mystery, Grimes has written and mostly loved them all. It's a shame that the prolific Martha Grimes is so underrated and often forgotten about when bloggers mention great mystery writers. She deserves better, an amazing writer. FADEAWAY GIRL is the latest in the quirky series featuring 12 year old Emma Graham, the sequel to Belle Ruin.Though I don't see how anything can top COLD FLAT JUNCTION, one of my very favorite books. Somehow Martha Grimes has managed to give this series a kind of gothic quality though it's set in the American west of dry desert country and small underpopulated towns. The cast of characters is quirky, to say the least.

A RED HERRING WITHOUT MUSTARD by Alan Bradley. The third in Bradley's wonderful series ALSO featuring a 12 year old protagonist. The series is set in the English countryside of the 1950's and Bradley captures the bleak post war ambiance perfectly. The heroine, Flavia De Luce is a lonely young girl, a prodigy mostly ignored by her family and left on her own to invent, experiment with chemicals (there's a convenient laboratory on the upper floor of the family house) and otherwise keep herself busy. Which she does, often getting in the way of a murder investigation. The first book THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE won just about every award for a debut novel. The second book THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG was even better.

ONE WAS A SOLDIER by Julia Spencer-Fleming. This is the 7th in the Clare Fergusson series set in a small upstate New York town in which it always seems to be winter. All I can say is I've loved this series since the first book, IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER and not a single book following that initial award winning debut has let me down. Clare Fergusson is such a unique protagonist, she is a minister and an army veteran helicopter pilot (Iraq War), now in the Reserves.

How Clare first arrives in the town of Miller's Kill and over the course of these books insinuates herself into the town and the lives of its people while often caught up in the murder investigations of by-the-book Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne makes for great reading. BUT, this is definitely a series that MUST be read in order from the beginning to get the full effect of the deepening friendship between Clare and the police chief who, from the beginning is very much married. The author has always handled this aspect of the storyline with tact and an intensity of feeling expressed mostly in silence. To see the titles of the other books in this great series, please go to the fantastic fiction website.

Sunday Salon: Five MORE Favorite Heroines

1) Stephanie Plum in the hilarious series by Janet Evanovich. Now I admit that Stephanie is the original Jersey Ditz, but I still like her a helluva lot. She is not stupid, she is just hapless. The hap-liest bounty hunter that ever walked the streets looking for lunatic felons. (Does Trenton have any other kind?) First book in the series (though not to my mind, the best): One for the Money.

What I most especially like about Stephanie is this: even though she complains constantly about her family, in truth she loves and needs them in her life, even if they are, shall we say, a bit on the eccentric side. Especially Grandma Mazur, an ancient given to wearing spandex and rhinestone studded sneakers. I like that Stephanie cares for her long-lived hamster, Rex, making sure first thing, when disaster strikes, that he is okay. (How this little furry creature has survived all the explosions, fire bombs and attempts on Stephanie's life defies logic and belief, but in a very good way.)

I like that Stephanie is tempted by not one, but two men, Joe and Ranger. I also like that both men, in turn, are tempted by Stephanie. (We should all have that problem.) I like that her car gets blown up in almost every book. I like Lula and the gang down at Vinnie's Bail Bonds. I like the whole mythical Trenton ambiance invented by Evanovich, helping make Stephanie, very much the Joisey Alice in Wonderland. If you have a sense of fun and appreciate the ridiculous absurdities of life, you will love this series.

2) Flavia de Luce in the absolutely top-notch new series (two books old so far) by Alan Bradley. The first book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, won just about every award at the Bouchercon By the Bay Mystery Convention last week. The second book: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag is even better, if you can believe it. Flavia joins the elite ranks of ubiquitous British child eccentrics - she is 11 years old at the beginning of this series and already skilled in chemistry. Luckily for her, there's a handy-dandy laboratory on the top floor of her ramshackle house. I love precocious British children, most especially those on the eve of discovering wisdom.

Ignored by her family, Flavia lives a lonely life in the English countryside of the 1950's. But she is indefatigable in her attempt to construct some sort of life for herself excluding her two awful sisters (in a fairy tale they'd be the wicked stepsisters) and an indifferent father who prefers collecting stamps to caring for his family. There's a wistful sadness that lingers over just about everything in these books, but there's also a great deal of humor. Flavia is an astute observer - not to mention, a genius at concocting poisonous chemical experiments.

3) Lady Frances Derwent in Agatha Christie's often overlooked classic, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? Frankie, as she is known to her friends, never appears in another book and I've often wondered why. She is the epitome of the bright young thing with a title and a brain, a character very popular in the mysteries of the 1930's and 40's. But even though her appearance is limited to this one book, it is an indelible one. She is delightful - a slightly snotty, imperiously well-bred, beautiful young woman with a sense of adventure and fun. She is also, in love with the hapless (there's that word again - maybe I have a thing for hapless. ) son of the local vicar. That much-put-upon vicar is played delightfully (another word I'm over fond of) in the PBS Mystery version, by Sir John Gielgud. No one, and I mean NO ONE IN THE WORLD can wince quite so hilariously as Gielgud and in this version of the Christie tale, he is called on to wince quite regularly - his son is a very trying individual.

Once they save each other's lives, Frankie will very likely marry the vicar's son and spend the rest of their lives living on her estate, happily bossing him around (and he, happily, putting up with it) and solving any mysteries that come their way.

4) Hester Latterly in the William Monk books, by Anne Perry. Hester is a Crimean War veteran, a nurse who's served on the horrific front lines and lived to tell about it. Author Perry writes several historical series, but Hester to me is the stand-out character in one of the two series I'm most familiar with. Even if she is not the main character, she is certainly second lead. If not for her, I believe that William Monk, a character who spends most of the books suffering from amnesia, would probably not have managed as well as he as.

Hester is home from the war in the first book in the series, home to a dark and indifferent London, careless of its wounded veterans. A nurse at a time when nurses were seen as low-life drudges capable of nothing but emptying bed pans and mopping floors. She is expected now to put aside her front line medical knowledge and kowtow to close-minded doctors who know less than she does. Finally admitting there's little she can do to change things, Hester leaves hospital nursing and goes into private practise, doing what she can to make a difference. She then meets and becomes friends with the amnesiac William Monk, a moody, troubled detective working some of the more fearful crimes that Victorian London has to offer.

A series best read in order of publication, the first book is titled: The Face Of A Stranger.

5) Clare Fergusson, retired Army chopper pilot and newly appointed Episcopalian minister, in the series set in a fictional town in upstate New York (where it always seems to be winter), by Award winning author, Julia Spencer-Fleming. The first book in this moody, evocative series is the perfectly titled, In the Bleak Midwinter. This is definitely the sort of series about which it is often said, you must begin at the beginning. No jumping into the books mid-way. Well, I mean, you could, but to my mind, you'd be missing the full impact of the growing (and heartbreaking) relationship between Clare and the very married town sheriff, Russ van Alstyne. How this all works out (if it works out) will keep you guessing from book to book, that's why I say you must begin at the beginning.

Clare is the sort of person most would admire, she is intelligent, stalwart, opinionated, driven to duty, wise in some ways and not-so-wise in others and she has a good sense of humor - not always the best thing for a priest. Last but not least, she knows how to pilot a helicopter - I don't know about you, but that impressed the hell out of me. Clare tries always to do what's right, especially within her new calling. I like the unique dichotomy of Clare as conflicted woman and priest. But as everyone knows, always doing right can be the pits.

Lots of murderous acts and intentions in these cold, lonely, snow covered towns lying in the moody hills of upstate New York. Who knew?