American/Cozy Mysteries

In this novel, Claire is confronted with the mundane problem of a leaking church roof - the vestry scenes where Claire and the vestry try to figure out how to pay for it are so realistic you feel like writing the church a check yourself. The leaking roof opens into the mystery - the wealthy Mrs. Marshall offers to liquidate her family trust to help pay for it, but it will mean withdrawing financial support from the free clinic in town, long funded by her family. Claire is twisted with guilt over the decision - free clinic? new roof? - only one seems truly worthwhile, but the other is a necessity. When she and Mrs. Marshall visit the free clinic to give Dr. Rouse the bad news (he's been the doctor there as long as anyone can remember) they find him in a stand-off with a disgruntled patient who claims the vaccinations he gave her child caused his autism. Claire helps to defuse the situation to the annoyance of Russ, who is already on the scene. This of course serves to throw Claire and Russ into each other's path once again in a believable way.

After delivering the bad news, Claire, in a fit of guilt, decides to do something useful to the community during Lent (also to assuage her guilt over the roof) - and she ends up volunteering to catalogue letters and other memorabilia at the local historical society. While there, she stumbles across a record of vaccinations back in the 20's, written by the doctor at the time. As Claire is drawn into this long ago mystery, which involves the disappearance of Mrs. Marshall's father, the present day Dr. Rouse disappears, and Claire is in on the hunt as the whole community searches for him. Spencer-Fleming skillfully weaves in Claire's growing discoveries of the past, through the doctor's diary, and her discoveries in the present, where nothing is what it seems. At one point, the story of the past became so painful I had to put the book down overnight before I could pick it up again and finish it.

Only a skillful writer could tie together so many various plot threads in a manner that makes it all look easy (think Sharyn McCrumb or Margaret Maron), and at the same time have the underlying issues be so complex. There are two sides to every thread in this book, and they are all fully examined. The beautiful writing and the backdrop of Lent and Easter made the entire novel more moving to me, and I was in a flood of tears when I finished it. There won't be too many better books written this year.