Ben Beagle of the Glens Falls Post-Star, interviewing the Rev. Clare Fergusson as part of our series on local folks with interesting jobs. Clare, you’re the rector at St. Alban’s Church in Millers Kill. That’s very different work than most of our readers are familiar with. What’s your day usually like?

CF: Oh, goodness, I’m not sure an Episcopal priest has a typical day. I might have meetings with the vestry – they’re our governing board – or individual counseling, or working on one of our outreach programs. With Christmas coming, we’re gathering winter wear and heating fuel donations. Of course, I had a baby this past spring, so every day starts with family time.

BB: Your husband is Russ Van Alstyne, the town’s chief of police.

CF: Um. Well. No, he resigned a few weeks ago. His second in command is acting chief now.

BB: Van Alstyne was seen wading right in to stop things when a fight broke out at the local holiday parade. That doesn’t sound like a former officer.

CF: For heaven’s sake, there was a group of white supremacists handing out hate-filled leaflets! Russ stopped a brawl, that’s something anyone would do.

BB: You got involved yourself, is that part of the usual work of a rector?

CF: There was a woman in distress—

BB: Who was part of this so-called militia group, right?

CF: I don’t ask for people’s political affiliations before I try to help them, Ben. Besides, outreach means reaching out. To everyone. Maybe if I can befriend this woman, I can help, well, deprogram her.

BB: So you’re planning on hanging out with these white supremacists.

CF: Ben, you told me you were going to be asking about the St. Alban’s Christmas pageant.

BB: Sure. When’s the pageant?

CF: At the five o’clock service on Christmas Eve. We have additional free parking at Soley’s lot.

BB: Sounds great. Is it true you’re encouraging your husband to go into private investigating? Doesn’t he need a license for that?

CF: No! I mean yes, he would need a license. But no, I don’t think he needs to become a PI. He just – look, the man’s been in law enforcement for the better part of thirty years. He needs to be doing something besides getting underfoot while I’m trying to write my weekly sermon.

BB: So you did urge him to locate former Millers Kill officer Kevin Flynn? Who’s gone missing after some alleged hard-to-confirm ‘undercover’ work?

CF: I’m sure it’s all very simple and Russ will find him shortly.

BB: Nothing criminal involved.

CF: Nothing criminal involved.

BB: Nothing to do with the rumors I’ve been hearing about a dangerous militia group operating in the Adirondack Park.

CF: Ben! I’m sure! Kevin’s probably gone winter camping.

BB: Because you do have a history of getting neck-deep into all sorts of criminal investigations. Which, and I’m just saying, is not the norm for most priests.

CF: Let me put your mind at ease, then. The only non-church things I’m planning to do this holiday season are taking the baby to see Santa, decorating our tree, and making hot cocoa. It is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year.

BB: Hmm. We’ll see. Meanwhile, readers, please join us next week, when we’ll be asking if Millers Kill police officer Hadley Knox had an inappropriately unprofessional relationship with her former partner.

CF: What?!?

AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY – A “Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne” Mystery, Book 10
Genre: Police Procedural
Release: November 2025
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

New York Times bestseller Julia Spencer-Fleming returns to her beloved Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series

It’s Christmas time in Millers Kill, and Reverend Clare Fergusson and her husband Russ van Alstyne – newly resigned from his position as chief of police – plan to enjoy it with their baby boy. On their list: visiting Santa, decorating the tree, and attending the church Christmas pageant. But when a beloved holiday parade is crashed by white supremacists, Clare and Russ find themselves sucked into a parallel world of militias, machinations and murder.

Meanwhile, single mom and officer Hadley Knox has her hands full juggling her kids and her police work. She doesn’t want to worry about her former partner – and sometimes lover – Kevin Flynn, but when he takes leave from the Syracuse PD and disappears, she can’t help her growing panic that something has gone very wrong.

Novice lawyer Joy Zhào is keeping secrets from her superiors at the state Attorney General’s Office. She knows they wouldn’t condone her off-the-books investigation, but she’s convinced a threatening alt-right conspiracy is brewing – and catching the perpetrators could jump start her career.

NYS Forest Ranger Paul Terrance is looking for his uncle, a veteran of the park service gone inexplicably missing. He doesn’t think much of an ex-cop and out-of-town officer showing up in his patch of the woods, but he’s heard the disturbing rumors of dangerous men in the mountains.

In New York Times Julia Spencer-Fleming’s latest novel, as Christmas approaches, these five people will discover their suspicions hang on a single twisting thread, leading to the forbidding High Peaks of the Adirondacks. As the December days shorten and the nights grow long, a disparate group of would-be heroes need to unwind a murderous plot before time runs out.

About the author
A former military brat, New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist Julia Spencer-Fleming grew up in places as diverse as Montgomery, Rome, Stuttgart and Syracuse. A graduate of Ithaca College, George Washington University and the University of Maine School of Law, she took up writing while still a stay-at-home mother of two. During the time it took to finish her first novel, she got a full-time job at a Portland, Maine, law firm and had a third child. Julia didn’t want to write yet another lawyer-sleuth, so she used her army past and a keen eye for the goings-on at her Episcopal church to create Clare Fergusson, first female priest in the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill. The resulting series has won or been nominated for almost every American mystery award available, including the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Agatha. The 10th book in her series, At Midnight Comes the Cry, was published November 18, 2025.