IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER, by Julia Spencer-Fleming, 2002, Thomas Dunne Books, New York, 308 pages, hardcover, $23.95.

Clare Fergusson has had a rough few weeks. She’s the new Episcopalian priest in the small upstate New York town of Millers Kill. The ancien regime that runs her parish questions if she’s “leader” enough. The transplanted southerner is still adjusting to a Northern winter, as she’s finding out her dainty dress boots and sporty MG are woefully inadequate in the cold and snow.

Now, to top things off, she’s just found an abandoned baby on the steps to her rectory. A note attached instructs that the boy be given to a couple in the congregation who have long been seeking a child.

This incident soon will sweep her into the middle of a continually deepening mystery in Saco author Julia Spencer-Fleming’s debut novel.

The novel’s publication is a result of Spencer-Fleming’s winning the 2001 St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Award. But although it’s her first published book, she does a laudable job of keeping the suspense high throughout.

In the novel, the priest ends up teaming with Russ Van Alystyne, the town’s married chief of police. This doesn’t go over well with some of her parishioners, who’d rather she be concerned with church suppers and decorations, not solving crimes.

The pair find they have a lot in common, including a military background and having no one to talk to about their draining positions. They become friends, but their relationship threatens throughout to develop into something more.

Shortly after the discovery of the baby, a young woman is found dead. Soon Clare and Russ have established the link between the two, and find themselves with a short list of suspects. One of those then gets scratched from the list, permanently, and the duo needs to find other possibilities, and quickly.

Clare makes for an improbable heroine, drawing on the skills she learned while an Army pilot to survive in often-precarious situations. She awakens something in Russ, who had settled into his comfortable retirement job, and brings him back to life.

Spencer-Fleming masterfully builds the tension in the fast-paced latter section of the book. It takes a good while until the reader is able to pick out the unlikely killer. A native of upstate New York, she also uses the winter itself into a harsh character that many Mainers will have no trouble recognizing.

“In the Bleak Midwinter” is an ambitious first novel, filled with promise of future riveting works from Spencer-Fleming.