The Fergusson/Van Alstyne Mysteries

Out of the Deep I Cry

Book 3

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.

“Early spring in the Adirondacks is vividly described in this third installment in the series, and both the main and secondary characters are well developed…a comfortable mix of police procedural and village cozy.”

—Booklist

“The third and most densely textured mystery in a series by Julia Spencer-Fleming that brings new airs and graces to the traditional small-town mystery…yes, this is a very small town, but under Spencer-Fleming’s grave and tender touch it becomes a world that you want to visit and hate to leave.”

—New York Times Book Review

“One of the great pleasures in a mystery reviewer’s life is watching a promising series take root and blossom into something strong and unusual. Out of the Deep I Cry…is a perfect example.”

—Baltimore Sun

The Fergusson/Van Alstyne Mysteries

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

Book 6

Book 7

Book 8

Book 9

Book 10

At Midnight Comes the Cry

New York Times bestseller Julia Spencer-Fleming returns to her beloved Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series.

It’s Christmas time in Millers Kill, and Reverend Clare Fergusson and her husband Russ van Alstyne—newly resigned from his position as chief of police—plan to enjoy it with their baby boy. On their list: visiting Santa, decorating the tree, and attending the church Christmas pageant. But when a beloved holiday parade is crashed by white supremacists, Clare and Russ find themselves sucked into a parallel world of militias, machinations and murder.

Meanwhile, single mom and officer Hadley Knox has her hands full juggling her kids and her police work. She doesn’t want to worry about her former partner—and sometimes lover—Kevin Flynn, but when he takes leave from the Syracuse PD and disappears, she can’t help her growing panic that something has gone very wrong.

Novice lawyer Joy Zhào is keeping secrets from her superiors at the state Attorney General’s Office. She knows they wouldn’t condone her off-the-books investigation, but she’s convinced a threatening alt-right conspiracy is brewing—and catching the perpetrators could jump start her career.

NYS Forest Ranger Paul Terrance is looking for his uncle, a veteran of the park service gone inexplicably missing. He doesn’t think much of an ex-cop and out-of-town officer showing up in his patch of the woods, but he’s heard the disturbing rumors of dangerous men in the mountains.

In New York Times Julia Spencer-Fleming's latest novel, as Christmas approaches, these five people will discover their suspicions hang on a single twisting thread, leading to the forbidding High Peaks of the Adirondacks. As the December days shorten and the nights grow long, a disparate group of would-be heroes need to unwind a murderous plot before time runs out.