Perilous Pilgrimage is Book 7 from the Raff Rafferty Mysteries by Robert Joseph. Father Raff Rafferty and his daughter Fatima join a group of pilgrims with contrasting personalities to walk the holy Santiago de Compostela Way in Spain. Raff tries to keep peace in the group since Colonel Lyonell enjoys bullying everyone. A doctor accompanying another group suddenly dies while dining with Raff and their guide comes under suspicion. As the pilgrims continue their holy journey, Bram, another member of the doctor’s group falls to his death. Bram’s fiancée, Didi, intends to continue the pilgrimage in his honour, but is unaware that someone watches her very closely on the journey. Raff, a former detective, suspects foul play but lacks evidence to prove the deaths were intentional.

Robert Joseph takes readers on a spiritual journey in Perilous Pilgrimage, Book 7 in the Raff Rafferty Mysteries. I also felt like a pilgrim on the Santiago de Compostela Way since the author gave a very detailed and informative tour through his well-penned writing. His characters entertained me with their constant bantering and actions. Father Raff still cannot let go of his police training, becoming suspicious and alert when he senses evil at work. This is hard to resist because he is now a priest. I assume that is the reason for so much suspense in the story since the priest mainly observes subtle hints and activities while justice was served with a very clever twist ending that I did not expect but thought appropriate.

Perilous Pilgrimage's story line is very clear and well thought out and is, essentially, realistic. The question is, how believable is it? What you have in this book is a diverse bunch of people, ranging in occupation from an ex-detective priest to a murderous beauty queen, thrown together on a holy pilgrimage on the Camino in Spain. They are accompanied by the priest's daughter (he was once married, remember), a hostile ex-soldier, a tough Aussie vegetarian, a couple hell-bent on becoming pregnant, and a sexy male guide with prosthetic legs, just to name a few. Now, insert into the perilous plot the beauty queen's intention to inherit a fortune by bumping off one by one, everyone who stands in her way, including her fiancé, who it turns out isn't who everyone believed he was, and you indeed have a "Perilous Pilgrimage" which is anything but a holy journey to a higher spiritual level.

To tell you too much about how this beauty queen achieves her goals, and brings about her own misfortune in the process, would be to ruin your own perilous pilgrimage through this light page-turner by Robert Joseph. Suffice to say, the opening chapters grab us and then it's simply a fun read. If not entirely gripping or believable, it's enjoyable watching how well Robert Joseph works out all the twists and turns that leave bodies dead all over the place! Along the way, the reader learns plenty about the little places with unusual names like "The Bridge of Rabies," the refuges where you cook your dinners after trekking for many hours over many miles along the Camino trail, and you get a sense of the excitement of the "running of the bulls" at Pamplona. There's little doubt in my mind that Robert Joseph has experienced all this first hand.

Perilous Pilgrimage by Robert Joseph is #7 in a series of books about the detective/priest Raff Rafferty. It's the kind of book you take on vacation when you don't want your brain taxed by convoluted intrigue and politics, but still want to enjoy a light thriller with a Hollywood feel. Have fun wondering who's going to bite the bullet next on this rather gory Camino trail.