Pilgrimage of Darkness

When wealthy aristocrat Mark Delgado arrives at Eldorado for his nightly visit with his equally rich and pedigreed cousin, the beautiful Jeannie Murdock, he finds the door to her elegant 1840s raised cottage unexpectedly open, but no sign of her. A quick and desperate search of the house reveals a trail of blood leading through the house, down the exterior stairs, and to the driveway. Delgado calls the police, who quickly arrive and determine that Miss Murdock has likely been murdered and her body moved. She's found dead early the next morning in a thicket on the densely wooded property of her neighbor's decaying antebellum mansion, Glenwood. But the once elegant Glenwood is now inhabited along with its owners, by cows, chickens, hogs, cats, and other animals that roam freely through its open doors, destroying priceless furniture once owned by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, while meandering goats devour books from the former library of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's former home, Arlington. When the eccentric man and woman who live at Glenwood are arrested and charged with their neighbor's murder, Los Angeles celebrity defense attorney Mark Weinstein, intrigued by the case, and lured by the international publicity it will generate, arrives in Natchez on his private jet. With his host of high-profile attorneys and his own press corps in tow, he expects to easily exonerate the defendants and quickly return home to L.A. Instead, he finds himself facing a determined district attorney with a distinct home field advantage, and his own `dream team' immersed in a dark and many-layered culture which they don't grasp. one which plays by its own rules. There are others not directly involved in the matter who have their own reasons for making certain this case never goes to trial, who will stop at nothing, including murder, if necessary, to keep Weinstein from representing the defendants. This interesting tale, inspired by the true story of the sensational 1930s `Goat Castle Murder' has been updated and dynamically retold in the present by author Scott Faragher of Nashville, and Holly Springs, Mississippi. He manages to capture the subtle nuances and menacing undercurrents of a culture still closed to outsiders, as only a native Southerner can, in this interesting and emotionally charged adventure which takes place in exotic Natchez, Mississippi, an exquisitely beautiful place, untouched by time.