Talk:Julia Spencer-Fleming

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I've recently become a fan of Julia Spencer-Fleming's works from listening to audiobooks of three of her books: In the Bleak Midwinter, Out of the Deep I Cry, and All Mortal Flesh. She is a fine writer with a superb gift for plotting, scene depiction, suspense and action. She has created two wonderful, very human protagonists: Clare Fergusson and Russ van Alstyne, and lots of credible secondary characters.

Having said this, the author has maddening lapses in her writing that bring it down from the sublime, elevated plane of brilliance to mere good fiction. Here is an excerpt from the review I wrote on amazon.com of her first novel: In the Bleak Midwinter:

What kept me from giving this book 5 stars is what I call the "stupid factor". That's things that don't quite ring true or turn a first-rate mystery into a soap opera. It's things like the fact that the dead girl was possibly sexually molested by her father, as her sister definitely was. We saw that plot element used well in Elizabeth George's A Great Deliverance, and I bet it's been used lots of times. But its easy melodrama. Too easy. And Clare going off in her little MG all by herself, to a rendez-vous on a remote mountain road in a bad snowstorm, when she knew her car wasn't up for it, her boots weren't up for it, and there might be a killer out there. Surely, she would have provided for back-up or gone with someone else. The setup was that she'd had a tiff with Russ a short while before, but it's still not credible. It's just a stupid thing for a smart person to do. And again she confronts the killer at the end, all by herself and unarmed. That's not too smart, either. It's also not entirely credible that she would have spared his life the first time since she knew he was trying to kill her.

I also thought that even though the killer was intent of making things "as they were" for his family, his motive for disposing of the baby was weak, although necessary as a dramatic plot element. The baby was going to be adopted, and the author tells us that in dialogue. I can see why the killer killed his other victims, but not a month-old infant. Again, the soap-opera touch. The author also used the annoying ploy that nobody, not even her close friends and roommates had any idea that the victim was pregnant, even in her last trimester. That just doesn't jibe with reality. And a point of medical correction. Twenty-five year olds don't get colon cancer. Clare's sister should have been portrayed to have had leukemia or lymphoma perhaps - cancers that are common among young people.

Of her most recent book: All Mortal Flesh, I wrote:

Perhaps the title of this book should have been: All Moral Flesh. After I typed that in error, I then realized that this exactly exemplifies my problem with this book. I believe this is the 5th book in the Clare Fergusson/Russ van Alstyne series, and I've listened to three of them as audiobooks. I keep waiting for the passionate, pull-out-the-stops, love scene between Clare and Russ, but it never comes. I was willing to wait for awhile, but now I'm truly disappointed.

Ms. Spencer-Fleming. This is not Victorian England of 1840. We're not talking Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester here, or Cathy and Heathcliff. The last time I looked it was 2007 and people can deal with a little explicit sex and nudity in novels and if not that, at least the acknowledgment that such strong characters would act out strong feelings. I think the reader is getting tired of the on-again, off-again, overly melodramatic breast beating (instead of touching) between the protagonists.

This could have been a great book and a wonderful series, but the inexplicable, incomprehensible prudery has gotten in the way. After three novels, I still very much enjoy the dialogue, the scene evocation, the suspense, and the plot twists, but Author, please let the characters act on their feelings like real people.

SPOILER: My husband also listened to the audiobook and noted that teenage psychopaths with delusions of power (like the Columbine killers, Virginia Tech killer, etc.) use guns so they can project power, but still distance themselves from their victims. When a killer is a sadist, he may prefer a knife, because it is intimate and often sexual. The author's prudery shows up again in having the killer so indifferent to the attractive woman he kills. A sadist "is amused by, or takes pleasure in, the psychological or physical suffering of others (including animals)" (American Psychiatric Association). When the ME reassures Russ that the victim didn't suffer, the crime departs from type. If the perpetrator was a real sadist, this death would not have been without suffering. A crime author should be no more squeamish than her killers.

All in all, what I want to convey is that the author is a very good writer, she just frustrates the reader with the irritating lapses that could have been eliminated to make the book almost perfect fiction. I wish I could have been her editor instead of a commenter on the published book.

Please contribute your own comments on this author. A worthy topic of Internet conversation.

Kgreid 01:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)kgreid

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