An Excerpt from Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris

Pilgrim Soul by Gordon Ferris

We are delighted to welcome mystery author Gordon Ferris to Omnimystery News today.

Gordon's third "Douglas Brodie" mystery is Pilgrim Soul (Atlantic Books; January 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we are pleased to introduce you to the book with an excerpt from the first chapter.

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THERE'S NO GOOD TIME TO DIE. THERE'S no good place. Not even in a lover's arms at the peak of passion. It's still the end. Your story goes no further. But if I had the choice it wouldn't be in a snowdrift, in a public park, ten minutes from my own warm fireside, with a two-foot icicle rammed in my ear. This man wasn't given the option. His body lay splayed in cold crucifixion on Glasgow Green, his eyes gazing blindly into the face of his jealous god.
  I looked around me at the bare trees made skeletal with whitened limbs. High above, the black lid of the sky had been lifted off, and all the warmth in the world was escaping. In this bleak new year, Glasgow had been gathered up, spirited aloft, and dropped back down in Siberia. So cold. So cold.
  I tugged my scar tight round my throat to block the bitter wind form knifing my chest and stopping my heart. I looked down on his body, and saw in the terrorised face my great failure. The snow was trampled round about him, as though his killers had done a war dance afterwards. Around his head a dark stain seeped into the pristine white.
  A man stood a few feet away, clasping a shivering woman to his thick coat. Under his hat-brim his eyes held mine in a mix of horror and accusation. I needed no prompting. Not for this man's death. I was being paid to stop this happening. I hadn't. This was the fifth murder since I took on the job four months ago. But in fairness, back then, back in November, I was only hired to catch a thief …

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Photo provided courtesy of
Gordon Ferris

Gordon Ferris has been an executive in the Ministry of Defense and a consultancy partner in the banking division of Pricewaterhouse Coopers. He is the author of the "Danny McRae" series and the "Douglas Brodie" series. Bitter Water, the second book in the "Douglas Brodie" series, was shortlisted for Crime Writers Association Ellis Peters Dagger 2012.

For more information about the author and his work, please visit his website at GordonFerris.com.

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Pilgrim Soul
Gordon Ferris
A Douglas Brodie Mystery

It's 1947 and the worst winter in memory: Glasgow is buried in snow, killers stalk the streets — and Douglas Brodie's past is engulfing him.

It starts small. The Jewish community in Glasgow asks Douglas Brodie, ex-policeman turned journalist, to solve a series of burglaries. The police don't care and Brodie needs the cash. Brodie solves the crime but the thief is found dead, butchered by the owner of the house he was robbing. When the householder in turn is murdered, the whole community is in uproar — and Brodie's simple case of theft disintegrates into chaos.

Into the mayhem strides Danny McRae — Brodie's old sparring partner from when they policed Glasgow's mean streets. Does Danny bring with him the seeds of redemption or retribution? As the murder tally mounts, Brodie discovers tainted gold and a blood-stained trail back to the concentration camps. Back to the horrors that haunt his dreams. Glasgow is overflowing with Jewish refugees. But have their persecutors pursued them? And who will be next to die?