Audiobook Review: I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer Fleming

I Shall Not Want
Author: Julia Spencer-Fleming
Narrator: Suzanne Toren
Series: Ferguson/Van Alstyne Mysteries (Book 6)
Publication: Blackstone Audio (August 14, 2015)
Length: 14 hours and 46 minutes

Description: In the searing conclusion to All Mortal Flesh, Russ' balance between duty and desire was broken by his wife's tragic death. Now Russ and Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson are separated by a wall of guilt and grief. When a Mexican farmhand stumbles over a Latino man killed with a single shot to the back of his head, Clare is drawn into the investigation. The discovery of two more bodies ignites fears that a serial killer is loose in the rural town while Russ is plagued by the media hysteria, conflict within the police department, and a series of baffling assaults. Throughout the escalating tensions, he and Clare find themselves seeking each other out even as they intend to keep distant.

My Thoughts: Clare and Russ are still each dealing with grief and guilt. Russ's wife's death has made things worse between them. When a body of a young Latino man is found by an illegal farm worker working on Russ's sister's new dairy farm, Clare gets immediately involved in the plight of the illegals. Then two more bodies are found. 

Russ's new deputy gets a lot of page time in this episode. She is Hadley Knox who is a California transplant who has come back to Millers Kill with her children to live with her grandfather who is Clare's sexton. She's broke and takes a job with the police because it is steady work with benefits. She doesn't have any particular call to law enforcement. 

Hadley is an attractive woman and the previous low man on the police department payroll Kevin Flynn falls for her immediately. She is less than interested seeing their ten-year age difference as a real barrier. Besides which, she isn't interested in finding a man. One skill that she does bring to the department that is especially useful is that she is fluent in Spanish which really helps with the current murder case.

Clare is adjusting to being a weekend warrior as she serves in the National Guard, but that doesn't stop her setting up initiatives to work with the Latino farm laborers who have recently come to her attention. That also means that she is right in the middle of the murder investigations too. 

A serious injury to Russ rearranges both Russ and Clare's attitudes in regard to each other, but just when things seem to be resolving between the two of them, Clare's National Guard unit is deployed to Iraq. Now they are facing a year-long separation and thus ends book 6 in the Clare Ferguson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series. 

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