GALLOWGLASS: GORDON FERRIS

Gallowglass [Gaelic: galloglaigh] An elite Scottish mercenary warrior. 

Gallowglass is the final instalment in the Douglas Brodie series set in the harsh world of post Second World War Scotland.

Brodie, a crime reporter for the Glasgow Gazette is recovering from chasing Nazi war criminals across Glasgow is asked by the wife of a distinguished banker to carry the ransom money to his kidnappers. But Brodie is being set up and is arrested for the kidnap and murder of Sir Fraser Gibson of the Scottish Linen Bank. The world was a very different place in 1947…..

Viscount Louis Mountbatten had just announced the intended partition of India and the creation of the two independent states of India and Pakistan. It meant the loss of the shiniest jewel in our imperial crown. Violence was already erupting as the citizens of these nascent states took sides. I’d given it a local spin by suggesting it might put up the price of Lipton’s. 

Some things never change, but in 1947 the UK including Scotland had the death penalty, therefore Brodie’s friends including his lover advocate Samantha Campbell, and those in MI5 who remember his exemplary war service and his efforts to uncover the Nazi ratline, engineer an escape. Brodie must deal with crooked cops, local gangsters and  a privileged elite for whom embezzlement is a way of life in order to save himself from the gallows. 

Brodie as a character, his relationship with Sam Campbell, and the detailed accounts of Glasgow with its social divisions between rich and poor, are the reasons I like the series. Brodie is a bit like a Scottish Bulldog Drummond, but one without the nasty jingoism that spoils Sapper’s books for a modern reader. But he does go rushing around righting wrongs and putting villains in their place. The first person narrative flows easily and there is always a little humour as when Brodie is in prison and Sam brings him his reading material.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, the tale of a man wrongfully imprisoned, who escapes and then metes out justice and revenge on the men who’d arranged his incarceration. My plan exactly.

Gordon Ferris has written an exciting adventure story with some relevant comments for our time. I am quite sad to see the end of Brodie, he was an interesting man, a veteran who had gone through the trauma of war and its aftermath to return home at a very difficult time for Britain. 

Halfway along stood the Scottish Linen bank, its solid red sandstone facade proclaiming rectitude and propriety. 

Your money is safe with us and we might let you have some of it back if you ask politely and do a bit of grovelling.    

My review of Pilgrim Soul.