Monday, December 23, 2024

Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one another and their small Adirondack town.
The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.
But coming home is harder than it looks. One vet will struggle with drugs and alcohol. One will lose his family and friends. One will die.
Since their first meeting, Russ and Clare's bond has been tried, torn, and forged by adversity. But when he rules the veteran's death a suicide, she violently rejects his verdict, drawing the surviving vets into an unorthodox investigation that threatens jobs, relationships, and her own future with Russ.
As the days cool and the nights grow longer, they will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny town to the upper ranks of the U.S. Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.

Comment: This is the 7th installment in the series where reverend Clare Fergusson and chief of police Russ van Alstyne investigate cases in their Miller's Kill community and town.

Eighteen months after Clare was sent to Iraq, she is back and Russ is beyond happy. They want to finally live their romance in the open but there is always something getting in the way. Clare is also not doing very well, and she doesn't share she is taking more pills than she should. She joins a veteran's therapy group, along with other four patients who, by chance, know each other and they develop this bond that only someone who was in a combat zone can understand. But something isn't right and not only related to their personal struggles... is there a way to avoid tragedy or what started in Iraq will finally be finished here, when supposedly danger is gone?

This series has been quite a gem for me and for a friend of mine, we've been buddy reading these books since the 3rd installment. We have also been reading other books, but I must say this one hits the notes of a series with compelling characters and situations and a very good mix of angst and light comedy, especially in the dialogue and a few situations the characters find themselves in. I know the story might not be a happy one all the time, it's really not, but there's this vibe of bad and good that makes reading the story something that gives me a lot of comfort.

The installments are focused on different plots but the lives of the characters keep being developed and many references are linked to past books. It's really not a series that should be read out of order, although if one does, the plot segment makes sense, but it's so much better to read and know what some situations are about or what this or that comment truly means. Since this is the 7th book, there is a lot of content that mattered before so that the characters are the way they are now.

Each book has a specific plot and/or theme addressed and, of course, in this book that theme is the often challenging mental struggles soldiers have. We often hear about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) but it encompasses a large variety of situations and symptoms. The author, obviously, wouldn't be able to highlight all the possibilities in the book without making it a book about that alone, but I think she used common examples of some of the most known symptoms and offered a way for the reader to think about what it meant and still means for so many soldiers and people who are in war zones to come back after living things most of us cannot imagine.

Along with this, we also have another case, the discovery of a fraud and theft situation and Russ finds himself investigating. I liked the mix of these plot elements, the story felt alive, as it always does, and something was always ongoing, making the pace feel more vibrant. At the same time, we kept seeing the characters deal with their issues, then interact with one another, we have the POV of several characters, but in a very consistent way, and reading from those different POVs was not difficult, even made some situations more interesting for that.

I think that, for plot reasons and to keep some of the issues ongoing for longer, there are one or two situations, related to the characters, namely Clare and one secondary character, that felt a bit too predictable. I understand why, after all the author wanted the big reveals and the moment in which the individuals who were in the group therapy shared their feelings and admitted they had a problem to happen closer to the end of the story. However, this means some things continued further than they had to and to delay the reveal, some scenes felt a little forced, and the need to "hide" things but making them part of the plot led to predictable situations. This didn't spoil my enjoyment but it's one of those things that done better would have given the story a different feel.

I must say the end was a little bittersweet. I say in the sense that things end up well for the protagonists, and I'm very eager to read the next book now! But some events happen that can be seen as sad or unfair... some don't have solution, but others do and I'm hoping the author will do something about it in the next book. As for this one, very well done, indeed.
Grade: 8/10

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