• All Mortal Flesh

  • A Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mystery
  • By: Julia Spencer-Fleming
  • Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
  • Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (227 ratings)

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All Mortal Flesh  By  cover art

All Mortal Flesh

By: Julia Spencer-Fleming
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
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Publisher's summary

Police Chief Russ van Alstyne doesn't expect any gossip in the town about his carefully contained feelings for the Reverend Clare Fergusson. So he certainly doesn't expect to be the prime suspect when his wife is found murdered in their own home. To the state police, it's an open-and-shut-case of a disaffected husband, silencing first his wife, then the investigation he controls.

But nothing is as it seems in the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill, where betrayal twists old friendships and evil waits inside white-clapboard farmhouses. Russ and Clare struggle against the reach of the law, the authority of the church, and their own guilty hearts in All Mortal Flesh.

©2006 Julia Spencer-Fleming (P)2010 BBC Audio

Critic reviews

"Fans, once they start reading, will hang Do Not Disturb signs on their doors." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about All Mortal Flesh

Average customer ratings
Overall
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The best one in the series yet -- but it is no 5!

Would you listen to All Mortal Flesh again? Why?

Probably not -- I rarely read books twice or listen to them twice.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Claire -- I am an Episcopalian so it's neat to have a main character from my church and tradition. Plus she's a strong female character which is always refreshing

Any additional comments?

This is book no. 5 in the series not book no. 4 which is what the Audible information says! Please fix this Audible. It's VERY important to read these books in order and as far as I know they are not all available as audiobooks on Audible. I had to read a couple in regular print form. Please do them all as audiobooks and number them correctly!

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

couldn't finish it

What disappointed you about All Mortal Flesh?

narration

Any additional comments?

I think this quite possibly would have been a good book. I couldn't get past the horrific narration. Upstate New York is not the deep south so what's with the southern belle accent? And if you can't do a male voice then for pity's sake just read with your own voice and let the listener figure it out. What a waste.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Toooo Long

I constantly found the audiobook starting and not having any idea what was going on. There were too many characters to keep track of and the ending was terrible. So many times I just wanted to stop the book and go on to something new, but made myself stick it out in anticipation it would get better. This morning, I looked and saw I only had 54 minutes left and told myself I could push through. It was such a relief to discover the last 15 minutes was an author interview (which I skipped). The whole thing was very dry. There was no true protagonist that you were rooting for. All characters were abysmal. The closest character to a likable character loses in the end. The one positive is that you didn’t know who the killer was until the end, but the greater suspense was “how long til it’s over”.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Was there no editor for this book?

NO SPOILERS
1. Thank God this book was free but even so I refused to finish it
2. Admittedly, I only got to chapter 14 (not sure why but on my Audible device - for this book only, several chapters are displayed into a single chapter so the book’s chapter 14 was only chapter 4 on my device). Near the end of chapter 14 where the police are interviewing a 16 yo white boy named Quinn, they describe him as wearing his pants below his waist so his underwear are showing. Then they say something like “he’s a good kid. Someday he’ll figure out that he’s a 16 yo white kid and not a 16yo black gang banger”. I’m not black but I don’t think you need to be to be offended by this stereotype. I am surrounded by white educated families and I can tell you that many of their kids walk around like Quinn. Am I the only one who was bothered by this? There have been other books that are guilty of the same offense and when I walk away from them it kills me that I’m never going to know how they end. This book is not one of those because it was so poorly written.
3. The story is contrived and amateurish. The dialogue is so basic and boring. Definitely don’t pay for it. Even if you can get it for free like I did, save your time for a better book.
4. LOVE the narrator! That’s how I found this book. I searched her name and this title came up. Since it was a genre I like and because it was included with my membership, I downloaded it. Still love the narrator but poor and bad writing is still poor and bad writing.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Reader almost ruined it

.. because of over emphasizing every line of dialogue. It became really irritating because nothing was said in a normal tone, making regular sentences all sounding over dramatic. But the story is good.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not a stand alone book.

I didn't like the narrator's voice reading of the male speech. The tone she used for Russ made me think of an old man, not a strong main character.
Listening to the story helped me form a better picture of the setting and characters after reading the printed version. Part of a great series.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

All mortal flesh

This audio book was so full of action and deadly situations that I could barely keep up. I enjoyed this story, it was different from most mystery books.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I love finding a new author

I really enjoyed this book. It is the first of this authors books that I have read. I believe I will go back to the beginning of the series and start there. But I’m not sure I can resist jumping ahead when her new one comes out which won’t be too much longer.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

listen to it nonstop to the very end

normally by halfway through a book I could pretty much tell who did it. in this book it kept flipping back and forth with different people who could have done it and I didn't know till towards the very end who did it

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Going downhill

While I'd liked the series up to this point, I found this one very disappointing. The "mystery" seemed lame, and the characters of Claire and Russ seemed to have become lifeless and uninteresting. The "twist" at the end had both my wife and I rolling our eyes and not sure we'll continue with another or not.

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