All the Time in the World

My taste in reading material is wide and varied: SF/fantasy/"speculative fiction", mysteries (police procedurals, mostly), history, fanfic, straight fiction, smutty vampire books, biographies, poetry, cereal boxes, assembly instructions, the fine print, and your mind.

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the Bleak Midwinter - Julia Spencer-Fleming A nice change of pace in the mystery genre. The new priest at the local Episcopalian priest is a woman, unmarried, born in the South, and has a background as an Army helicopter pilot. The sheriff is a local boy who has recently returned home at the conclusion of his own military career, is married, and has known virtually everyone in the area all his life. When a baby is abandoned on the steps of the church, and shortly afterward a young woman turns up dead and is discovered to have given birth very recently, these two become unlikely allies in the pursuit of justice for the young mother and her unwanted child.

Since this first offering Spencer-Fleming has published six additional books set in the fictional New York Adirondacks town of Miller's Kill, allowing Russ and Clare to continue to fight crime and their growing mutual attraction. The freshness of the characters, all of whom are imperfect and wholly believeable, may pall after repeated doses, especially if the author hangs onto various schticks she has given them (e.g., Clare insists on driving a lightweight red sports car, despite strong warnings against such an impractical vehicle in the Adirondack winter, and apparently despite serious misadventure in the first book continues to do so in the second) - but I haven't yet delved into any of them to find out for myself.