I just reread the review I wrote of THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS, Julia Spencer-Fleming’s previous novel about Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne. At the close of my review, I mentioned that the author leaves readers with a cliffhanger ending. Little did I imagine at the time that we’d be left hanging on that cliff for more than six years. Six years, as Spencer-Fleming admits in her acknowledgments, is a long time between installments in a crime fiction series. But fortunately, she already has put in the work developing her characters and their milieu. So no matter how long it’s been, readers will readily feel back at home in Millers Kill, New York.

HID FROM OUR EYES, the ninth entry in the series, finds Clare and Russ still newlyweds, but now coping with the realities of life with a newborn. Clare, who is still wrestling with her hard-won sobriety, feels compelled to try to continue her full-time work as an Episcopalian priest while cobbling together babysitting for Ethan. Russ wants to be an involved dad, but he’s continuing to deal with the political problem of saving the Millers Kill police department, threatened with being replaced by a much cheaper (but much less involved) state police force.

"Spencer-Fleming hasn’t lost a step here. She deftly manages three different chronologies, building evidence and connecting characters in sometimes surprising ways."

And then into both of their laps falls another mystery. A young woman, wearing an expensive dress with no shoes and carrying no identification, is found dead on the side of the highway. A cause of death is not immediately apparent, but it is considered suspicious as it mimics the circumstances of two similar unsolved murders --- one from the early 1950s and the other from the early 1970s. No one is more aware of the parallels than Russ; he was one of the prime suspects in the latter case, as an angry and scarred young man, recently returned from military service in Vietnam.

Russ is determined to solve this case (and perhaps, by extension, its predecessors), as a way to demonstrate to the town the importance of community policing. But the political challenges are coming fast and furious, and before the novel ends, Russ may have made a decision that will change his career --- and his and Clare’s lives --- forever.

Spencer-Fleming hasn’t lost a step here. She deftly manages three different chronologies, building evidence and connecting characters in sometimes surprising ways. The struggles that Clare and Russ are contending with --- not to mention those shared by Russ’ younger colleagues, Hadley and Kevin --- are portrayed with authenticity and genuine compassion. And, without giving away too much, the author quite cleverly creates thought-provoking parallels between the bad guys and the good guys, showing how power and responsibility can be handled with grace --- or be twisted into evil.

Guess what? Spencer-Fleming ends HID FROM OUR EYES with another cliffhanger. Let’s hope that it doesn’t take another six years to be resolved, but we’ll be ready for the invitation back to Millers Kill whenever it arrives.