The Ferryman Institute  by Colin Gigl

Gallery Books, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1501125324

Available: Pre-order, paperback and Kindle editions

Charlie Dawson is a Ferryman– an immortal whose job is to coax the spirits of the newly dead through a doorway into the “light”. Watching people dying on a daily basis would take a toll on anyone, and after 250 years of it, he is burned out and reckless. One day he receives an assignment to guide Alice Siegel, who is about to commit suicide. When he opens the envelope with his assignment inside and removes the instructions, he reads, “Be a Ferryman or save the girl”. In saving Alice, he breaks a cardinal rule of the Ferryman Institute by revealing himself as a Ferryman, which threatens the existence of the secretive organization. Upon Charlie’s return to the Institute, Inspector Javrouche of Internal Affairs, who bears a grudge against Charlie, uses his rule breaking as an opportunity to prosecute him. Charlie escapes to the scene of his last assignment– Alice’s bedroom– and takes an unwilling and irate Alice along with him on an outrageous adventure,  on the run from Javrouche and the Institute’s security forces.

I love the world-building in this book. Gigl does a great job of fully realizing a bureaucratic organization responsible for making sure that the spirits of the dead are guided to the light. Giving Charlie the choice to save the woman he is assigned to is a creative way to set up the story and reveal characters’ motivations. Employees of the Ferryman Institute are well-drawn, even the minor ones. The persistent and vengeful Inspector Javrouche and the mysterious Cartwright are especially interesting. The background to Javrouche’s character, and his enmity towards Charlie, help to build suspense and distrust that shape the story and keep the reader off-kilter and engaged in the action. I can easily see the Ferryman Institute as a setting for a new paranormal series, which could be especially interesting if the storyline continues to include Javrouche and Cartwright.

However, I feel like Gigl couldn’t quite decide what genre to write. The beginning of the book suggests that it will be urban fantasy or contemporary paranormal fiction, but the relationship between Charlie and Alice is central to the book, and somewhere after Charlie escapes Javrouche and kidnaps Alice, it veers into romance novel territory. What’s problematic about this is that both characters are incredibly self-involved and unsympathetic, so it’s hard for the reader to root for a successful romantic relationship. Additionally, the relationship feels very forced. In their first interaction, Alice shoots him in the head, and just a few pages before she first kisses him, she calls him self-centered, in a very uncomplimentary fashion. It’s just not believable that these two people could sustain a successful love affair when they can barely sustain themselves. Because a romance novel requires a happy ending, the resolution of Charlie’s dilemma also feels forced. Given two unsatisfactory but interesting choices as possibilities for a retired Ferryman, a third option conveniently becomes available that resolves all his conflicts and allows him to have a normal, romantic relationship with Alice, as a mortal, so they can have their happy ending. It ties up most of the loose ends, but it is an uncomfortable fit, and I don’t think most romance readers would be satisfied. The Ferryman Institute may appeal more to urban fantasy readers. While the relationship between Charlie and Alice isn’t compelling, there’s plenty of action, the secondary characters are great, and they will enjoy the unique world Gigl has created. While not essential to a collection in this genre, The Ferryman Institute is an interesting choice for voracious readers and libraries building large urban fantasy collections.

Contains: graphic descriptions of dismemberment and violent death, attempted suicide.