Pun Salad

On a lark, I put all five of the Edgar Award nominees for "Best [Mystery] Novel" into my TBR pile.

That was in 2005. And this is only the second one I've read in the group. Moan.

But it's good, of course. It spans decades, from the 1920s to the present day, in the fictional Millers Kill, New York, a "seemingly ordinary" town in the Adirondacks. In the distant past, failed farmer Jonathen Ketchem went missing without a trace, leaving a wife and daughter behind. Now the doctor at the local clinic has also vanished, and his case has weird similarities and connections to the Ketchem case.

Trying to sort through it all is Clare Fergusson, priest at the local Episcopal church; she's also an ex-army helicopter pilot, and she's pretty awesome. Also in the mix is town native Russ Van Alstyne. Thirty years previous, he bravely saved the Widow Ketchem from a suicide attempt, and now he's police chief. They make an unlikely crime-fighting duo, but it worked for me.

This turns out to have been the third book in a (so far) series of six. A more-aware reader might have picked up on this, but I didn't notice. To Ms Spencer-Fleming's credit, it works well as a stand-alone, not relying on the reader's knowledge of her characters' past exploits. There's a big honking loose end at the finish of this book, though. It would be interesting to see how that works out, but given the state of my TBR pile …