This post originally appeared on our new crime/mystery sister site, CriminalElement.com. Go investigate!
I like to think that I read eclectically, and that might be true. When I looked at that BBC list of 100 books worth reading making the rounds on Facebook, I had read 62 of them. And, believe me, not a whole lot of them were romances or even mysteries. I will admit, however, that most of my recreational reading tends toward romance. If asked to name my favorite contemporary authors, Loretta Chase and Barbara O'Neal would be very high up on the list. So, yeah. I'm a Romance reader.
I do read mysteries—sometimes. What do I look for in a mystery? Well, I like a good plot. I don't want to guess who done it by chapter two. I want some interesting twists and turns. And want a well-planned hunt for the culprit and an occasional moment of danger thrown in. But if a mystery has all of these things and lacks a good, solid relationship between two of the main characters, I won't be picking up a second book by that author. It's not the author. It's me. I need a relationship. For me, the characters are the key component in most books. If I can't connect with the characters, I lose interest. Call me shallow. Call me human. Call me a Romance reader.
Currently, I am reading Julia Spencer-Fleming's Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mysteries. This should give you a clue right off the bat that there's a relationship involved. If you haven't read her, you should. Her first novel, In the Bleak Midwinter, won the Agatha Award, The Anthony Award, the Barry Award, and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel, as well as winning the Dilys award and being a finalist for The Nero Award. She has also been nominated for the Edgar and Gumshoe Awards. Every award but the Oscar. So, yeah. She's a good writer.
Julia Spencer-Fleming's novels are set in the small upstate New York town of Millers Kill. She has populated the town with diverse, well-defined characters and, indeed, the town itself is a character in all of her stories. There are no two-dimensional place-holders in her work. The mysteries are perhaps a little over-the-top for a rural town. But—hey!—mystery novel.
I have read every one of these novels, however, because of the two main characters. Clare Fergusson is a former army helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest, whose first parish is in Millers Kill. Russ Van Alstyne, the local Police Chief is a Vietnam veteran. In the first book, as the two try to solve the mystery of who left an infant at the church door in the middle of winter, they form a friendship. Throughout the rest of the series, the friendship grows into affection and attraction. Russ is a married man and they both are principled people who fight the attraction while trying not to sacrifice the friendship. They're doing a complicated dance and it makes the wait for each subsequent book all the more tantalizing.
This is a highly complicated relationship between two complex and compelling characters. The relationship evolves over the course of the six books, but it's never pat, and it's never easy. I pick up each of Spencer-Fleming's books wondering, not only what the mystery will be, but what will happen with Russ and Clare. [highlight for spoilers] Thankfully, Spencer-Fleming takes a page from the Romance novel handbook and kills off Russ's wife in book five.
Along with Spencer-Fleming's myriad other fans, I have been waiting for One Was a Soldier, finally released this month. Clare has returned from Iraq along with several other Millers Kill citizens, and each brings his or her own problem (Clare not excepted). This book, really more about the effect of war on the human spirit than about who killed Tally McNabb, was well worth waiting for. Russ and Clare's relationship has reached a new level, and the story leaves the reader wondering what the developments in this book will mean for their future.
Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne are written so fully and their characters are so compelling that their relationship matters to me more than the murder. It's why this Romance reader keeps going back to the Mystery.
Myretta Robens
The Republic of Pemberley
