In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In my quest for contemporary mystery writers as enjoyable as the Golden Age greats (Christie, Marsh, Allingham, Stout, Tey….), I was referred to Julia Spencer-Fleming. This first book in her series starts with an appealing title — a lovely old Christmas carol — & follows up with that most promising of openings, a baby left on a doorstep in the snow. Although the ambience is classic English village, this particular snowy doorstep is in upstate NY & belongs to a newly hired female priest. Rev. Fergusson’s natural proprietary interest in the abandoned baby boy is sharpened by a loving note from his unknown mother asking for Cody to be adopted by a wealthy couple in her congregation.
What helps this maximum outsider (woman, priest, newcomer) connect with local police chief Van Alstyne, & the other local men she must deal with, is her past military service. Clare Fergusson makes an excellent amateur sleuth: she’s both feminine & tough, a lone stranger who’s deeply involved in this semi-rural town, & an unabashed Christian who practices what she preaches, i.e., Jesus’s teachings about compassion, courage, & generosity. Alstyne is married (happily, as far as we can tell), but as this story unfolds into a murder case he & Fergusson are committed to solving, the adrenaline rush of danger + collaboration crackles with sexual tension.
For me, the resolution of the mystery didn’t reach the same level of authenticity or inevitability as the characters’ adventures in getting there, but I enjoyed the book (recalling my own years of slogging through snowdrifts in upstate NY from the satisfying comfort of California); nothing about it was annoying (rare in these days when publishers don’t require writers to be literate); & I look forward to Fergusson & Van Alstyne’s next case.
* * * * * * * *
Murder in Mykonos by Jeffrey Siger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Siger doesn’t invite us into a picture postcard of Mykonos so much as blast a hole in it. This fast-paced thriller spotlights the Greek island’s all-night party side — bars, boats, beaches, blondes. Our first point-of-view character quickly becomes a murder victim. As the island’s new police chief hunts the killer, and rocks the political & social boat by digging into various nudge-nudge wink-wink local scams, he discovers this body is just one in what may be a long-running series. Meanwhile, the frantic parents of another tourist matching the same description report that their daughter has disappeared.
Siger’s edge-of-your-seat plot is as full of twists and turns as the old mining tunnels burrowed under Mykonos’s picturesque landscape. I couldn’t put it down. There’s enough sex and violence to ratchet up the stakes without pandering to porno fans, enough scenery to please armchair tourists, & enough action to leave a reader breathless.
The writing isn’t inspired, but it’s not that kind of book. My main quibble is that it doesn’t matter to the author who turns out to be the killer. Although we spend a fair amount of time inside that tormented head, which we know must belong to one of 4 suspects, none of them are characterized enough from the outside for any realistic “whodunnit” guess to be possible. Even when the cops catch up with their quarry, they don’t let the reader know who it is. That secret the author keeps until the book’s last line — in my opinion, a cheesy trick.
