Audiobook Review: Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Out of the Deep I Cry
Author: Julia Spencer-Fleming
Narrator: Suzanne Torren
Series: Fergusson/Van Alstyne Mysteries (Book 3)
Publication: Blackstone Audio (August 28, 2015
Length: 15 hours and 1 minute

Description: When the local doctor disappears from the small town of Millers Kill, New York, it doesn't take long for the gossip mongers to start insinuating foul play. Amid escalating suspicions that he was "disposed of" due to his ongoing fight to prevent authorities from cutting his clinic's funding, Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ van Alstyne are enlisted to investigate. Neither could have bargained for what they discover, however, as they pursue an investigation that takes them deep into the past - to the Jazz Age, Prohibition, and the Great Depression - and to a series of sordid and horrifying secrets one family will risk everything to keep hidden.

My Thoughts: It begins with a confrontation at the local free clinic when an anti-vaxxer confronts the doctor blaming a vaccine for her son's autism. Clare just happens to be passing by on her way to volunteer at the local historical society for Lent. 

Then a leak in the churches roof leads to an immediate need for funding. One of the church's board members suggests liquidating a trust that she has been managing from her mother's inheritance. The only problem is that the earnings from the trust have been supporting that same free clinic as a memorial to the board member's father who disappeared in 1930. 

Then the doctor disappears after a confrontation with the anti-vaxxer and the hunt is on to find him. With Clare certain that the anti-vaxxer had nothing to do with the disappearance despite being the last to see the doctor and Russ investigating, the two are thrown together more than they should be since they are already denying their love for each other despite his wife and her vows. 

There were numerous flashbacks to the events that led to the formation of the trust and the lives of the board member's parents which explain where the money came from and how it came to be that their four young children died of diphtheria. 

This was an excellent entry into the series. I absolutely hurt for Clare and Russ and the difficult choices that they have to make in their personal lives. I also enjoyed the mysteries of the doctor's disappearance and the disappearance of the board member's father. 

I bought this one from Chirp January 4, 2024. You can buy your copy here.