Title: The Cough of Birds
Author Brian Anderson
Genre Mystery
Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb
When Minneapolis private investigator Lyle Dahms visits a friend who makes armor at a rural Renaissance festival instead of a day of medieval merrymaking he witnesses a grisly murder, watching helplessly as one of the friend’s colleagues is pinned to a wall by an arrow shot by an unseen assailant. Although warned to stay out of the case by the local constabulary, Dahms gets drawn in further and further as he uncovers drug dealing, crooked cops, infidelity, more deaths, and even stumbles into an unlikely chance at love with a comely and independent-minded barmaid.
As lies and hidden agendas reveal themselves, Dahms must keep his wits about him as he navigates an unfamiliar bygone land of knights in armor, wandering jugglers, lusty wenches, strolling minstrels, and both gun-toting and broadsword-wielding adversaries. All that and, of course, something with which Dahms is all too familiar—murder.
Excerpt
Edgerton closed his eyes and shook his head as though trying to shake loose a thought. “That sound,” he said.
“Sound?”
“Yeah. That sound. The sound of that arrow striking the wall.” He paused, then looked up at me. “That sound. There’s this Old English verse fragment. Most scholars call it The Fight at Finnsburg. You know it?”
“No.”
“There’s this line. Gathered in the hall, a group of warriors are waiting for dawn and a battle to come. One of them, a young man anticipating how at sunrise their position will be attacked first with a volley of arrows, says, ‘Soon shall be the cough of birds, hoar wolf’s howl, hard wood-talk, shield’s answer to shaft.’ That’s the sound. The whistle of the arrow flying past. The knock of the arrow against the wood as it pierced Jason’s neck. That ‘cough of birds.’ I'll be hearing that cough for the rest of my life.”
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-cough-of-birds-brian-anderson/1143743274?ean=9781509250912
The Wild Rose Press: https://wildrosepress.com/product/the-cough-of-birds/
Author Biography
Brian Anderson is a graduate of the University of Minnesota whose Dinkytown neighborhood provides the setting for his mystery series featuring private investigator Lyle Dahms. The Dahms novels spring from his lifelong love of mystery fiction, especially the works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, as well as more contemporary masters like Robert B. Parker and G. M. Ford. He is a three-time finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association mystery and suspense contest, and his debut novel, The Shiver in Her Eyes, was a finalist in their Nancy Pearl Contest for published fiction.
In 2024, he released his standalone novel Yule Tide, which features a fallen angel turned private investigator who fights to wrest Christmas from the dark forces who have taken control and twisted it to their evil ends.
Brian spent much of his professional career working to alleviate domestic hunger serving as the operations director of the Emergency Feeding Program of Seattle & King County as well as the manager of the Pike Market Food Bank in downtown Seattle. Married with three beautiful daughters, he now lives and writes in Ocean Shores, a small city on the Washington coast.
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