Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne have been doing a lot of
soul-searching-literally. At the beginning of ALL MORTAL FLESH,
Julia Spencer-Fleming's fifth novel set in the small upstate town
of Millers Kill, New York, Clare and Russ, after confessing their
romantic feelings toward each other, have spent a week praying,
crying and wrestling with their personal demons as they try to
decide how to approach their decidedly forbidden love
relationship.

The young, military-trained, female Episcopal priest and the
married veteran chief of police might be an odd couple, but their
love for each other is sincere and utterly believable. In the end,
the two make the heartwrenching decision to part, never to see each
other except in chance encounters at the grocery store and post
office, to be almost-strangers instead of close friends and
almost-lovers.

All this becomes a lot more complicated, though, when Russ's wife
Linda is found murdered in the couple's family home. The
long-married pair have been separated for more than a week, and
both Russ and Clare certainly have means, motive and opportunity to
kill the woman. Russ, nearly paralyzed by grief, feels compelled to
pursue Linda's killer even as he copes with his own feelings of
disloyalty, doubt and guilt. Russ also discovers that his late
wife, who was so outraged to hear of Russ's feelings for Clare,
might have been hiding her own secrets all along. Clare, too, tries
to exercise her amateur sleuthing skills to achieve justice and to
exonerate the man she can't help but love. In the course of the
investigation, small-town rumors fly fast and furious, suspicions
are cast, loyalties are tested, and the truth about Russ and
Clare's relationship finally might have to come out in the
open.

Russ must take his own investigation underground when the state
police, tipped off by one of Russ's own men, begin to suspect that
the department is covering up for their chief. In the meantime,
Clare is also under suspicion, as a frighteningly capable new
deacon shows up to put her oar into Clare's parish (and personal)
affairs. Just when Russ and Clare, who have grown so important to
one another, need each other most, they are unable to depend on the
other at all. Just as in previous books in the series, the
character development, as much as the mystery plot, will be what
keeps readers engaged, turning pages and demanding to know what
happens next.

With ALL MORTAL FLESH, Julia Spencer-Fleming takes her superb
series to new and darker places. Mistaken identity, new characters
and a painfully ironic plot twist drive the novel in unexpected
ways, and the end of the book will take both Russ and Clare in
unforeseen directions that hint at future complexities to come.
With its fascinating, probing character studies and unusual ethical
sensitivities, Spencer-Fleming's mystery series takes the genre to
a whole new level --- and it looks like the best, most challenging
chapter is still to come.