It's a cold, snowy December in the upstate New York town of Millers Kill, and newly ordained Clare Fergusson is on thin ice as the first female priest of its small Episcopal church. The ancient regime running the parish covertly demands that she prove herself as a leader. However, her blunt manner, honed by years as an army pilot, is meeting with a chilly reception from some members of her congregation and Chief of Police Russ Van Alystyne, in particular, doesn't know what to make of her, or how to address "a lady priest" for that matter.
The last thing she needs is trouble, but that is exactly what she finds. When a newborn baby is abandoned on the church stairs and a young mother is brutally murdered, Clare has to pick her way through the secrets and silence that shadow that town like the ever-present Adirondack mountains. As the days dwindle down and the attraction between the avowed priest and the married police chief grows, Clare will need all her faith, tenacity, and courage to stand fast against a killer's icy heart.
"In the Bleak Midwinter" is one of the most outstanding Malice Domestic winners the contest has seen. The compelling atmosphere-the kind of very cold and snowy winter that is typical of upstate New York-will make you reach for another sweater. The characters are fully and believably drawn and you will feel like they are your old friends and find yourself rooting for them every step of the way.

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. . .
In "To Darkness and To Death," 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.

In "In the Bleak Midwinter," Julia Spencer-Fleming's Malice Domestic-winning first mystery, Reverend Clare Fergusson was quickly introduced to a more eventful life than she had expected after moving to the small town of Millers Kill in upstate New York. But the Episcopal priest and former Army Air Force chopper pilot proved to her flockae and to police chief Russ Van Alstyneaethat she could cope with the unexpected, even when it was as dire as murder. In "A Fountain Filled With Blood," this new adventure for the two ill-matched friends (who are gamely resisting something beyond friendship) shows that a small town can hold just as much evil as the Wicked City.

How do you find a killer who leaves no trace? New York Times bestseller Julia Spencer-Fleming returns to her gripping Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series with a compelling case that spans decades. 'Thrilling, chilling and the suspense is killing' Val McDermid Two murders, twenty years apart, with eerie similarities: a woman in a party dress murdered with no obvious cause of death. The last known suspect? Russ Van Alstyne, never convicted but never completely cleared either. Now, decades later, a third young woman is found under similar circumstances. It's a new case that opens old wounds for Russ, now a police chief himself. With three crimes spanning generations, and Russ himself under suspicion, the pressure is on for him to solve the murder or risk losing everything he loves. PRAISE FOR JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: 'Julia Spencer-Fleming is one of mystery fiction's treasures' JOHN CONNELLY 'A superb murder mystery' LOUISE PENNY 'A powerful psychological thriller and a pulse-pounding action adventure that shows us once again why Julia Spencer-Fleming is one of our finest writers of suspense' JOSEPH FINDER

One horrible murder. Two people destined for love or tragedy. Emotions explode in Millers Kill, where nothing is as it seems . . . and betrayal twists old friendships and evil waits inside quaint farmhouses.

Russ Van Alstyne figures his wife kicking him out of their house is nobody's business but his own. Until a neighbor pays a friendly visit to Linda Van Alstyne -and finds the woman's body, gruesomely butchered, on the kitchen floor. To the state police, it's an open-and-shut case of a disaffected husband silencing his wife and putting a stop to the murder investigation he controls. To the townspeople, it's proof that the whispered gossip about the police chief and the priest was true. To the powers-that-be in the church hierarchy, it's a chance to control their wayward cleric once and for all. Russ and Clare must struggle against the reach of the law, the authority of the church, and their own guilty hearts.

"A pivotal book in this award-winning series, and nominated for the prestigious Edgar Award for Best Novel--Julia Spencer-Fleming's "Out of the Deep I Cry "is a triumph not to be missed."

On April 1, 1930, Jonathan Ketchem's wife Jane walked from her house to the police department to ask for help in finding her husband. The men, worn out from a night of chasing bootleggers, did what they could. But no one ever saw Jonathan Ketchem again...
Now decades later, someone else is missing in Miller's Kill, NY. This time it's the physician of the clinic that bears the Ketchem name. Suspicion falls on a volatile single mother with a grudge against the doctor, but Reverend Clare Fergusson isn't convinced. As Clare and Russ investigate, they discover that the doctor's disappearance is linked to a bloody trail going all the way back to the hardscrabble Prohibition era. As they draw ever closer to the truth, their attraction for each other grows increasingly more difficult to resist. And their search threatens to uncover secrets that snake from one generation to the next-and to someone who's ready to kill.

On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one another and their small Adirondack town.

The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.

But coming home is harder than it looks. One vet will struggle with drugs and alcohol. One will lose his family and friends. One will die.

Since their first meeting, Russ and Clare's bond has been tried, torn, and forged by adversity. But when he rules the veteran's death a suicide, she violently rejects his verdict, drawing the surviving vets into an unorthodox investigation that threatens jobs, relationships, and her own future with Russ.

As the days cool and the nights grow longer, they will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny town to the upper ranks of the U.S. Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.

"One Was a Soldier "is "a surefire winner" ("Booklist") and "Outstanding" ("Library Journal")--Julia Spencer-Fleming at her best.