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Shop nowOne Was a Soldier
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreAt the Millers Kill community center, five veterans gather to work on adjusting to life after war. Reverend Clare Fergusson has returned from Iraq with a head full of bad memories she's using alcohol to wipe out. And down-on-her-luck Tally McNabb has brought home a secret—a fatal one. Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne just wants Clare to settle down and get married—to him. But when he rules Tally McNabb's death a suicide, Clare sides with the other vets against him. Russ and Clare's unorthodox investigation will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny Adirondack town to the upper ranks of the Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.
Julia Spencer-Fleming is an Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Dilys, Gumshoe, and Macavity award winner. She studied acting and history at Ithaca College and received her JD at the University of Maine School of Law. Her books have been short-listed for the Edgar and Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice awards. She lives in a 190-year-old farmhouse in Buxton, Maine, with her husband and three children.
Suzanne Toren has over 30 years of experience in recording. She won the American Foundation for the Blind's Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year in 1988, and AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture. She is also the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. Her many credits include works by Jane Smiley, Margaret Weis, Jerry Spinelli, Barbara Kingsolver, and Cynthia Rylant. AudioFile also raves, “Toren brings a distinguishing warmth and power to her narrations. Her talents extend to both fiction and nonfiction, and in her recording career of 30-plus years she has given listeners heart-wrenching memoirs, lively history, engaging light fiction, and involving mysteries.” Toren also performs on and off-Broadway and in regional theatres.
Reviews
“Spencer-Fleming knows her craft…But it’s character that really counts here, and nothing becomes Clare’s character more than her deepening sensitivity to the suffering of her fellow soldiers.”
“Julia Spencer-Fleming is a rarity in this business, a risk-taker and a writer of deep feeling. Few others could deliver a high-concept thriller that so perfectly captures the subtle sufferings of soldiers home from combat. A story of greed, betrayal, and wounded love, One Was a Soldier left me entertained, satisfied, and a shade wiser about the cost of war.”
“An absolute tour de force! Both a superb murder mystery and a gripping examination of the suffering of returning soldiers.”
“This is a surefire winner…Spencer-Fleming’s fans who have been waiting eagerly for her latest won’t be disappointed; this series, as intelligent as it is enthralling, just keeps getting better.”
“Suzanne Toren performs with her usual great strengths…Her passion and pacing are marvelous.”
“In the hands of a lesser writer, this novel would not fly, but Spencer-Fleming carries it off and concludes with a believable resolution.”
“Explor[es] the inescapable legacies of soldiers come home, including a crushing burden of imagined, and unimaginable, guilt.”
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