Excerpt from Ruler of the Night by David Morrell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Harcourt's office was in Lombard Street, which tonight was cold and thick with mist. It was one of the shortest streets in this exclusive business district of London, a square mile known reverently as the City, always with a capital C. But despite the modest length of Lombard Street, its location near the palatial Bank of England and the Royal Exchange made it one of the most influential places in the world.

Harcourt took long steps over the dark, wet pavement and reached a cabstand at the corner. During the day, there were as many as twenty cabs here, the most that the law permitted at one time, but now, after business hours, he felt lucky to find two.

Climbing rapidly into the first, he called up to the top-hatted driver on his roost at the back, "Euston Station! I need to be on a nine o'clock train!"

"That doesn't give us much time, guv'nor."

"Triple your usual fare."

The driver enthusiastically cracked his whip, and the sprightly twoseated cab surged forward. The clatter of the horse's shoes echoed off the deserted stone buildings. At once, the driver dodged this way and that through a sudden chaos of vehicles coming north from Blackfriars Bridge. Cracking his whip harder, he urged his horse along Holborn Hill and turned right into Grays Inn Road.

Harcourt patted his leather case with the pages inside it. As the cab passed a mist-shrouded streetlamp, he studied his watch and saw that he now had only ten minutes to reach the station.

Harcourt tried to breathe slowly and calmly. He never failed to be nervous whenever he needed to make a railway journey. He remembered the mail-coach era, when speed was exhilarating rather than threatening.

"Nearly there, guv'nor," the driver called, swerving left into the New Road.

"It's almost nine o'clock!"

"No fears, guv'nor. Just have your coins ready when you jump out." As Euston Square appeared before him, Harcourt clutched his document case and umbrella, waiting anxiously for the cab to pass through the immense Roman arch that led to the station. At the curb, he threw the coins to the driver and raced into the Great Hall. Ignoring the pillars, statues, and grand staircase, he reached the only ticket window that remained open.

"The nine o'clock to Sedwick Hill," he told a clerk, shoving a crown toward him.

The clerk didn't need to ask if he wanted first class; Harcourt's gold watch chain told him everything. "Better hurry, sir."

Harcourt grabbed the ticket and rushed away.

"You forgot your change, sir!"

Ignoring the shout behind him, Harcourt pushed through a gate and reached the platform. After the classical architecture of the Great Hall, the ugliness of an iron-and-glass ceiling stretched before him. Smoke from countless departing engines had coated the glass with soot.

Harcourt showed his ticket to a guard and hurried along the waiting train, its hissing engine seeming to indicate impatience. He passed the third-class carriages in which passengers could only stand. Then came the second-class carriages with their hard benches. The social importance of wealthy passengers required them to take precedent and be at the front, even though that put them behind the noise and sparks from the belching engine.

Out of breath, Harcourt finally reached two first-class carriages. Each had several compartments, and each compartment had its separate entrance.

He peered through the first open door, but that compartment had passengers. He loathed sharing a confined space with strangers. Propriety obligated him to exchange a few pleasantries with them, but after that, the situation became awkward. During daylight, he could ignore the other occupants by reading a newspaper that he'd purchased from the W. H. Smith bookshop in the station, but at night, the single lamp in each compartment wasn't sufficient to allow him to read, forcing him to avoid conversing with strangers by staring out the window into the darkness.

Excerpted from Ruler of the Night by David Morrell. Copyright © 2016 by David Morrell. Excerpted by permission of Mulholland. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.