Julia Spencer-Fleming: To Darkness and To Death

To Darkness and To Death

Julia Spencer-Fleming

St. Martin's, Jun 2005, $23.95, 320 pp.

ISBN: 0312334850

John Huggins of the Millers Kill Search and Rescue asks volunteer Episcopalian Priest Clare Fergusson to help look for a missing woman lost in the Adirondacks. The nine year Air Force veteran joins the team learning that the missing woman is twenty-six years old Millie van der Hoeven, who was staying at her brother's home for the past three months, but failed to return from a walk.

At about the same time, Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne feels guilt over falling in love with Revered Fergusson though he is married to Lindy, who lovingly has been at his side every step of the way for twenty-five years. Adding to his discomfort Lindy gives him a special rifle for his fiftieth birthday while he struggles to say the words I love you to her. The missing person's case leads to a homicide and a land deal going bad all within the Blue Line that demarcates the Adirondack State Park. As Russ and Clare team up once again, their feelings for one another remain deep, but both fears the first step because it means telling Lindy.

The fourth entry in the Millers Kill, New York investigative series is a wonderful tale that provides an atmosphere of a small mountain town struggling with a deadly land deal. The lead couple remains an interesting pair in love, but trying not to hurt the kind innocent third party to their triangle. The who-done-it is cleverly developed so that the storyline, like the roads in the area, serpentine around the mountain. The audience obtains a tense terrific thriller that builds up from one scenario to a different one until the final altercation.

Harriet Klausner