11 February 2014

Review: BITTER WATER, Gordon Ferris

  • ZFormat: Kindle (Amazon)
  • File Size: 675 KB
  • Print Length: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Corvus; First Edition edition (April 1, 2012)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B006VSP8GG
Synopsis (Amazon)

Glasgow's melting. The temperature is rising and so is the murder rate. Douglas Brodie, ex-policeman, ex-soldier and now newest reporter on the Glasgow Gazette, has no shortage of material for his crime column.

But even Brodie baulks at his latest subject: a rapist who has been tarred and feathered by a balaclava-clad group. Brodie soon discovers a link between this horrific act and a series of brutal beatings.

As violence spreads and the body count rises, Brodie and advocate Samantha Campbell are entangled in a web of deception and savagery. Brodie is swamped with stories for the Gazette. But how long before he and Sam become the headline?

My Take

#2 in the Douglas Brodie series takes place a couple of years after the first. The years following World War II are not the golden days everyone had hoped for. Large areas of Glasgow are scheduled for regeneration but with the plans and the money comes corruption at city hall. 

Many returned soldiers have been unable to find jobs and indeed have been treated badly. Not only that, they can see others profiting by crime. Cases go to court and burglars, murderers, and others are being acquitted for lack of evidence, or through sloppy policing. The result is the rise of vigilantes taking matters into their own hands, and dispensing their own form of justice.

Douglas Brodie, working for The Gazette, becomes the target for one of these groups, The Marshall's, to get their message across.

I think I enjoyed this novel every bit as much as the first in the series. The main characters are strong, the settings feel historically authentic, and the tension ramps up as the story progresses.

My rating: 4.8

I have also reviewed 4.8, THE HANGING SHED

About the author
Gordon Ferris is an ex-techy in the Ministry of Defence and an ex-partner in one of the Big Four accountancy firms. Maybe that's where he gets his interest in spies and crooks. He writes about the important things in life: conflicted heroes and headstring women embroiled in tangled tales of life, love and death. He is the author of the No. 1 bestselling eBook The Hanging Shed. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now I'll add this to the TBR list. I just finished Pilgrim Soul, the third Douglas Brodie book, which I really liked.

In fact, I suffered from "post-good-book slump," as a famous blogger from Oz calls it, after I finished it.

Ferris' writing is just addictive, and somehow post WWII Glasgow is a compelling place to read about.

Anonymous said...

I have pinpointed, thanks to your post, a new-to-me author, Gordon Ferris, and have added him into the list of authors I would like to read. Not that I needed, in view of my TBR pile, but anyway thanks very much.

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