Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

Millers Kill reaches the boiling point in this white-hot novel of love and suspense
People die. Marriages fail. In the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill, New York, however, life doesn't stop for heartbreak. A brand-new officer in the police department, a breaking-and-entering, and trouble within his own family keep Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne busy enough to ignore the pain of losing his wife---and the woman he loves.
At St. Alban's Episcopal Church, the Reverend Clare Fergusson is trying to keep her vestry, her bishop, and her National Guard superiors happy---all the while denying her own wounded soul.
When a Mexican farmhand stumbles over a Latino man killed with a single shot to the back of his head, Clare is sucked into the investigation through her involvement in the migrant community. The discovery of two more bodies executed in the same way ignites fears that a serial killer is loose in the close-knit community. While the sorrowful spring turns into a scorching summer, Russ is plagued by media hysteria, conflict within his department, and a series of baffling assaults.
As the violence strikes closer and closer to home, an untried officer is tested, a wary migrant worker is tempted, and two would-be lovers who thought they had lost everything must find a way to trust each other again---before it becomes forever, fatally, too late.

Comment: This is the sixth installment in the series featuring reverend Clare Fergusson and chief police Russ van Alstyne. I have had such a great time reading these stories that, of course, I have to finish the whole series.

There will be some spoilers, for part of the plot is ongoing and some past situations will have to be mentioned.

In this story, which happens months after the events we saw in the last book, things seem to have become rather normal again, with Russ recovered from his injuries and back to work, and Clare dividing her time between the church and the National Guard. Then, problems once more start becoming complicated when a van carrying Latino workers to a farm has an accident and some run into the woods, scared of being considered illegal, while the driver, a nun Clare met some weeks before, is hurt. In the middle of all of this the farm is owned by Russ' sister and it turns out some of the paperwork is false, which his sister didn't know. At the same time, a body is discovered and it seems the man was executed. Could it be there is any connection between the Latino workers and the murder and the land in which the body was found?

These books are practically comfort reads by now. I have enjoyed every single one, and the more used I am to the characters, the more I like spending time reading about them including the police tasks Russ tells the others to do, which should be so mundane and irrelevant in the big scheme of things, but still makes me smile and find it funny how some of the team reacts. Perhaps, in regards to this story in specific, I wasn't as keen on the illegal immigrants' content, because it's really too close to real life and the solution doesn't seem to be that easy

I was actually a little surprised by how smooth and ordinary the transition between what happened in the last book - that end felt almost like a cliffhanger - and this one was accomplished. It felt as if nothing major had happened when, in fact, it did. Once I got into the swing of things, it was all back to normal, Russ and Clare were still trying to deal with their feelings for one another while trying to respect each other and even more so, Russ' need to mourn his wife.

The plot is very interesting, even though the illegal immigrants content wasn't one I'd look for to read on purpose... I know it's out there, I know it's a reality, but those who flee illegally are often in such unfair and impossible situations that I feel nothing will ever be fully fair to help them except fix the problems of their origin countries...if only it were that easy!

As for the crimes and the bodies being found, of course there's a very simple explanation and sequence of events, but only obvious when we have that explanation. As always, the author writes things in a very appealing way, so much that even small steps the characters take to investigate or to go from one point to the next seem fascinating. I think some secondary characters were a bit too much of a caricature and not all their actions made sense in that specific scenario. But I liked the new addition to the police force the her possible role in upcoming books...

Thinking about the personal lives of the protagonists, there isn't much more to say except that, as usual, by the end of the book there are two big situations which affect their path. I say this because it's rather obvious that the goal has always been to lead things to the point where Russ and Clare would become a couple. Well, it's been quite a road for them and in each book something happened to put them apart somehow. Since both are ethical and respectful of one another and of what it would like to others around them to not behave properly, this has been a long time coming.But I must say, I did like how things progressed in this book, mainly the final part. Still, the very end again features a life changing situation which will leave me worried until i read the next book.

Grade: 8/10