The Case of the Simple Passage: A Pilgrim Hugh Incident

By Dean Wesley Smith

A grandson goes missing in an old house. But he never left.

Impossible. But it happened.

The perfect kind of crazy case for private detective Pilgrim Hugh and his beautiful assistant, Donna.

Another fan-favorite Pilgrim Hugh Incident.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Dec 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386364290

Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang. His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month. During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series. For more information about Dean’s books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com and sign up for his newsletter.

Book preview

A grandson goes missing in an old house. But he never left.

Impossible. But it happened.

The perfect kind of crazy case for private detective Pilgrim Hugh and his beautiful assistant, Donna.

Another fan-favorite Pilgrim Hugh Incident.

ONE

DONNA MARKS PULLED Pilgrim Hugh’s black stretch-limo up in front of the large Victorian-style mansion and stopped behind the police cruiser sitting at the curb.

I’ll go talk with the chief, she said.

I’ll wait here, Pilgrim said, sipping on a bottle of water. He was clear in the back of the limo and could see out the side clearly even though no one could see in through the bullet-proof glass of the limo windows.

Huge oak trees surrounded the white and gray three-story mansion, casting shadows on it in the warm fall afternoon. Pilgrim had always thought of these old mansions as fun and had considered buying one once until he realized how small the rooms were, how bad the plumbing and electrical was, and how impossible it all was to remodel.

Pilgrim studied the old building for a moment while he waited for Donna. The tall roof looked to be in good shape, but the siding and trim and shutters around the old windows were clearly in need of sanding and paint. He could see evidence around to the side of the house beyond a hedge that workers had been working on the place, but in this neighborhood, they would have come in from the alley and only work on the front quickly.

Pilgrim admired older buildings like this one, but he liked his stuff new and on the cutting edge of technology. His penthouse on the top floor of his law building was state of the art and he spent a lot of money regularly keeping it that way.

And this limo was state