Search results for ""Author Phil Rickman""

THE SECOND INSTALMENT IN THE JOHN DEE PAPERSThe acclaimed second instalment of The John Dee Papers. Tudor intrigue, murder and the dark arts - brooding superstition leaves John Dee isolated in the land of his father...'Chills, thrills and satisfies. A fabulous read.' - Huffington PostAt the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumour shrouds the death of the one woman who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a deserted house, or was it murder? Even Dr John Dee, astrologer royal, adviser on the Hidden and one of Dudley's oldest friends, is uncertain. Then a rash promise to the Queen sends him to his family's old home on the Welsh Border in pursuit of the Wigmore Shewstone, a crystal credited with supernatural properties. With John Dee goes Robert Dudley, considered the most hated man in England. They travel with a London judge sent to try a sinister Welsh brigand with a legacy dating back to the Battle of Brynglas. After the battle, many of the English bodies were, according to legend, obscenely mutilated. Now, on the same haunted hill, another dead man has been found, similarly slashed. Devious politics, small-town corruption, twisted religion and a brooding superstition leave John Dee isolated in the land of his father. The previous book in the bestselling The John Dee Papers is The Bones of Avalon.

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'Brilliantly eerie' PETER JAMES'Engrossing and beautifully dark . . . a cracking good read' JO BRAND'A most original sleuth' THE TIMES Welcome to the River Wye: a place of poetry, historic obsession... and occult murder.The curious death of an estate agent is being investigated by detective David Vaynor who, before joining the police, studied the famous 18th century poet William Wordsworth. As Vaynor is discovering, the dark paganism that changed Wordsworth's life still lingers on the banks of the River Wye today - and there are some killings even the police can't approach...Enter Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum, and diocesan exorcist for Hereford. Called away from her local hauntings, Merrily finds herself confronting the riverside ghosts who, as Wordsworth puts it, 'promote ill purposes and flatter foul desires'. In the ancient heart of the Wye Valley, a buried grudge is about to come to light.*Book 16 in the Merrily Watkins series - now a critically acclaimed ITV drama starring Anna Maxwell-Martin!*More praise for Phil Rickman 'Cleverly illuminates the darkest corners of our imagination' John Connolly 'The layers, the characters, the humour, the spookiness - perfect' Elly Griffiths'First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night' Daily Mail'No one writes better of the shadow-frontier between the supernatural and the real world' Bernard Cornwell

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The Diocesan Exorcist for Hereford must reveal the haunting presence of Susan Lulham...First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night. - Daily MailThe angular, modernist house was an unexpected bargain for Zoe and Jonathan Mahonie - newcomers to the city of Hereford and apparently unaware that the house's pristine, white interior walls had been coated with the lifeblood of a previous owner. How is Merrily Watkins, Diocesan Exorcist for Hereford, to know if Zoe Mahonie is lying or deluded when she claims that the wrathful Susan Lulham is still in residence? Then comes another bloody death. Who is the real killer?A MERRILY WATKINS SERIES NOVELLA

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Merrily Watkins is the most singular of crime fiction protagonists... As ever [Rickman]'s supremely skillful at teasing out the menace that lies behind English folk customs and legends and weaving them into a compelling contemporary narrative. - Mail on SundayIN THE DARK HEART OF THE COUNTRYSIDE...Aidan Lloyd's cold and sombre funeral suggests he won't be resting in peace. But not even diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins foresees its unearthly aftermath.As a string of killings shakes the wintry Welsh border and a farming feud intensifies, Merrily - personally threatened by an enemy within - confronts secrets hidden in ancient dances and the walls of an enigmatic medieval church.

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The Parish Priest must solve the mystery of a young boy's deathly fall from the Ludlow Castle ruins, and discovers a hidden obsession with the afterlife amongst the ancient streets...'Compassionate, original and sharply contemporary. Rickman's crime series is one of the best around.' - SpectatorIn the affluent, historic town of Ludlow, a teenage boy dies in a fall from the castle ruins. Accident or suicide? No great mystery - so why does the boy's uncle, retired detective Andy Mumford, turn to Diocesan Exorcist Merrily Watkins? More people will die before Merrily - her own future uncertain - uncovers a dangerous obsession with suicide, death and the afterlife hidden within these shadowed medieval streets.

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Merrily must unearth the mysteries of the decaying village of Underhowle, and tackle a particularly stubborn Detective Inspector who strays off course...'Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman.' - Guardian'You're looking at his inspiration. These are ones he wishes he'd done, the ones he wishes he'd got to first.'After half a century of decay, the village of Underhowle looked to be on the brink of a new prosperity. Now, instead, it seems destined for notoriety as the home of a psychotic serial killer.DI Frannie Bliss, of Hereford CID, is convinced he knows where the bodies are buried, but Merrily Watkins wonders if Bliss isn't blinkered by personal ambition. Are the Underhowle deaths really linked to the legacy of Fred West and the most sickening cycle of killings in British criminal history?

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Single mother and Diocesan Exorcist Merrily Watkins must keep the peace in rural Hereford, quelling a modern witch hunt, and a killer with an old tradition to guard...Ancient history, violent deaths, feuds, intrigues and murder. A most original sleuth. - The TimesWhen a pagan couple buy a ruined church on the Welsh Border, there's an extreme reaction from the local fundamentalist priest. Is it a hate campaign or a nightmarish modern witch-hunt? Merrily Watkins is sent in to keep the lid on the cauldron and uncovers the sinister dynamics of the isolated village of Old Hindwell.

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NOW A MAJOR ITV DRAMAThe Master House, close to the Welsh border, is medieval and slowly falling into ruins. Now the house and its surrounding land have been sold to the Duchy of Cornwall. But the Duchy's plans to renovate the house and its outbuildings are frustrated when the specialist builder refuses to work there. 'This is a place,' he tells the Prince's land-steward, 'that doesn't want to be restored.'Directed by the Bishop of Hereford to investigate, deliverance consultant Merrily Watkins discovers ancient connections between the house and the nearby church, built by the Knights Templar whose shadow still envelopes isolated Garway Hill and its scattered communities. Why did all the local inns have astrological names? What deep history lies behind the vicious feud between two local families? And what happened here to intimidate even the great Edwardian ghost-story writer M R James? When Merrily learns that she - and even her daughter, Jane - are under surveillance by the security services, she's ready to quit. But a sudden death changes everything, and she returns to Garway to uncover fibres of fear and hatred stitched into history and now insidiously twisted in the corridors - and the cloisters - of power.

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Hereford's Diocesan Exorcist must encounter a legacy of evil within the crumbling walls of an old hotel along with memories of murder...'Merrily has become an ever more engaging protagonist, a passionate, flawed modern women every bit as concerned with the intricacies of crime as she is with demons that go bump in the night.' - Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail'There were certain phrases you could feel, like fingers up your spine. "Hattie Chancery's Room." Oh God . . .'A crumbling hotel on the border of England and Wales has long been linked with the possible origins of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles and his obsession with contacting the dead. Fascinating for young Jane Watkins, flushed with the freedom of her first weekend job. But the sinister side soon becomes apparent to her mother, Merrily, diocesan exorcist for Hereford. Then come memories of a child who killed. And blood in the fresh snow.

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The discovery of centuries old human bones; a haunted 12th century house; a medieval legend spawning a modern cult... Merrily must piece together a most insidious mystery.'Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman.' - GuardianWhen autumn storms blast Hereford, centuries-old human bones are found amongst the roots of a tree blown down on the city's Castle Green. But why have they been stolen? At the nearby Cathedral, another storm is building around a new, modernising bishop who believes that if the Church is to survive it must phase out irrelevant archaic practices. Not good news for Merrily Watkins, consultant on the paranormal or, as it used to be known, diocesan exorcist. Especially as she's now presented with the job at its most medieval. In the moody countryside on the edge of Wales, a rambling 12th-century house is thought to be haunted. Although its new owners don't believe in ghosts, they do believe in spiritual darkness and the need for exorcism. But their approach to Merrily is oblique and guarded. No-one can be told - least of all, the new bishop. Merrily's discovery of the house's links with the medieval legend of a man who resisted mortality threatens to expose the hidden history of a more modern cult and its trail of insidious abuse. A trail that may not be closed.

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With the framework of her own world beginning to crack, Merrily must venture into areas of mystery and menace; the secrets of the border's pagan past...'Ancient history, violent deaths, feuds, intrigues and murder. A most original sleuth.' - The Times'What I remember most was the sound of his breath. A hollow sound, as though he was drawing breath from somewhere else. Afterwards, he just said goodnight. I don't think he even remembered my name.'Hereford is home to the elite warriors of the SAS. The place where their secrets are hidden . . . secrets that go well beyond pain and can wreck marriages and private lives. When Merrily Watkins loses a friend in the regiment, she's drawn into a place where no woman is welcome, to investigate profound mysteries linked to the area's brutal pagan past.

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Leo Defford doesn't believe in ghosts. But, as the head of an independent production company, he does believe in high-impact TV. Defford hires journalist Grayle Underhill to research the history of Knap Hall, a one-time Tudor farmhouse that became the ultimate luxury guest house... until tragedy put it back on the market. Its recent history isn't conducive to a quick sale, but Defford isn't interested in keeping Knap Hall for longer than it takes to make a reality TV show that will run night after night... A house isolated by its rural situation and its dark reputation. Seven people, nationally known, but strangers to one another, locked inside. But this time, Big Brother may not be in control.A PHIL RICKMAN STANDALONE NOVEL

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'Brilliantly eerie' PETER JAMES'Engrossing and beautifully dark . . . a cracking good read' JO BRAND'A most original sleuth' THE TIMES Welcome to the River Wye: a place of poetry, historic obsession... and occult murder.The curious death of an estate agent is being investigated by detective David Vaynor who, before joining the police, studied the famous 18th century poet William Wordsworth. As Vaynor is discovering, the dark paganism that changed Wordsworth's life still lingers on the banks of the River Wye today - and there are some killings even the police can't approach...Enter Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum, and diocesan exorcist for Hereford. Called away from her local hauntings, Merrily finds herself confronting the riverside ghosts who, as Wordsworth puts it, 'promote ill purposes and flatter foul desires'. In the ancient heart of the Wye Valley, a buried grudge is about to come to light.*Book 16 in the Merrily Watkins series - now a critically acclaimed ITV drama starring Anna Maxwell-Martin!*More praise for Phil Rickman 'Cleverly illuminates the darkest corners of our imagination' John Connolly 'The layers, the characters, the humour, the spookiness - perfect' Elly Griffiths'First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night' Daily Mail'No one writes better of the shadow-frontier between the supernatural and the real world' Bernard Cornwell

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It is 1560, and Elizabeth Tudor has been on the throne for a year. Dr John Dee, at 32 already acclaimed throughout Europe, is her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts... a controversial appointment in these days of superstition and religious strife. Now the mild, bookish Dee has been sent to Glastonbury to find the missing bones of King Arthur, whose legacy was always so important to the Tudor line. With him - hardly the safest companion - is his friend and former student, Robert Dudley, a risk-taker, a wild card... and possibly the Queen's secret lover. The famously mystical town is still mourning the gruesome execution of its Abbot, Richard Whiting. But why was the Abbot really killed? What is the secret held by the monks since the Abbey was founded by Joseph of Arimathea, uncle of Christ and guardian of the Holy Grail? The mission takes Dee to the tangled roots of English magic, into unexpected violence, necromantic darkness, the breathless stirring of first love... and the cold heart of a complex plot against Elizabeth.THE FIRST INSTALMENT IN THE JOHN DEE PAPERS

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THE SECOND INSTALMENT IN THE MERRILY WATKINS SERIES'They'll follow you home... breathe down your phone at night... a prime target for every psychotic grinder of the dark satanic mills that ever sacrificed a chicken...' Diocesan Exorcist: a job viewed by the Church of England with such extreme suspicion that they changed the name.It's Deliverance Consultant now. Still, it seems, no job for a woman. But when the Bishop offers it to Merrily Watkins, parish priest and single mum, she's in no position to refuse. It starts badly for Merrily and gets no easier. As an early winter slices through the old city of Hereford, a body is found in the River Wye, an ancient church is desecrated and signs of evil appear in the cathedral itself, where the tomb of a medieval saint lies in pieces.

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December, and the river is rising. The village of Ledwardine has never been flooded in living memory. Within days it will be an island. There's no electricity. The church is serving as a temporary mortuary for two people who drowned. Only one man feels safer. An aggressively-atheist author has been moved, for his own safety, Rushdie-style, into a secluded house just outside the village. Fundamentalist Christians have hated him for years. Now he's offended the Muslims. Bad move. Meanwhile, archaeologists, assisted by Merrily's teenage daughter, Jane, are at work in Coleman's Meadow, unearthing an ancient row of standing stones which some people would rather stay buried. The atheist's temporary home is close to the site. And his young wife is becoming conspicuously agitated. Is it the fear of discovery -- or the kind of fear that she, of all people, could never disclose? One thing is clear: the last person who's going to be welcome in that house is an exorcist. With the flood water washing up Church Lane towards the vicarage and the shop running out of cigarettes it looks like a cold and complex Christmas for Merrily Watkins in an ancient community forced to untangle its own history against the swirling uncertainty of the future.

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The discovery of centuries old human bones; a haunted 12th century house; a medieval legend spawning a modern cult... Merrily must piece together a most insidious mystery.'No-one in the business deals with the spooky stuff better.' - Crime Review UK'She dragged herself back up, holding her scraped hands inside the sleeves of her parka like paws. As she came to her knees, a sound like laughter was chopped up by the wind, and the woman was back . . .'A legend of the undead, still seductive, still deadly. A storm unearths a medieval corpse in the old city of Hereford, and the past returns to menace diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins.

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When a man's body is discovered near the picturesque town of Hay-on-Wye, his death appears to be 'unnatural' in every sense. Merrily Watkins is drafted in to investigate.'Rickman's writing style reflects his subject matter: spooky and indirect, elegantly crafted but always a sense of shadow behind you, that you've missed something you should have seen.' - New York Review Of Books'The wind was rising. A smokey cloud-mass shaped like a rabbit made a forward bound in slow motion and came apart over Hay Castle a mile away on the horizon . . .'Hay-on-Wye: the Welsh-border town that became world-famous for declaring independence and crowning its own king. But now black clouds are gathering, to meet rising shadows from the past. As the town fights for its future, a man drowns in a deep pool below a waterfall, a woman disappears, and diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins - alone and vulnerable - uncovers a secret history of dark magic and ritual murder.

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A supernatural thriller from the author of the chilling Merrily Watkins Mysteries.For Bethan, a schoolteacher, the old superstitions woven into the social fabric of her West Wales village are primitive and distasteful, which is why she's pleased to welcome the sophisticated newcomers: London journalist Giles Freeman and his wife Claire. Surely they'll let in some fresh air? But the Freemans are keen to absorb this different culture, a whole new way of life, rejecting the advice of an old colleague who warns them of a hard and bitter land where they've always danced on the edge of the abyss. They soon learn that this community hides an ancient, bloody, and pagan secret - one that will haunt them forever.A PHIL RICKMAN STANDALONE NOVEL

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THE FIRST IN THE INCREDIBLE MERRILY WATKINS SERIESMerrily Watkins: late thirties, single mum, parish priest. Cosy? I don't think so...The new vicar had never wanted a picture-postcard parish - or a huge and haunted vicarage. Nor had she wanted to walk into a dispute over a controversial play about a seventeenth-century clergyman accused of witchcraft... a story that certain long-established families would rather remained obscure.But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets...A paradise of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. And also - as Merrily Watkins and her teenage daughter, Jane, discover - a village where horrific murder is a tradition that spans centuries.

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A school girl possessed by evil spirits and a savage murder; Merrily is once again drawn into the deadly tangle of deceit and mystery in rural Herefordshire...Lies, cover-ups, danger and the unexplainable. The pace is fast and plot twists await the reader around every corner. Even sceptics will shudder. - Publishers Weekly'Black poles against the pale night . . . like a site laid out for a mass crucifixion.'A summer of oppressive heat in Herefordshire's hop-growing country, where the river flows as dark as beer. A converted kiln is the scene of a savage murder. When the local vicar refuses to deal with its aftermath, diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins is sent out to a village with a past as twisted as the hop-bines which once enclosed it.

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NOW A MAJOR ITV DRAMAMerrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, heads for the Malvern Hills to investigate an alleged paranormal dimension to a spate of road accidents in the sleepy village of Wychehill. Merrily is called in when two people are killed in a head-on crash that is also linked to the revamped local pub which, it seems, has injected the valley with a shattering, strobing surge of inner-city nightlife... and drugs. When a dealer is found savagely murdered below the great earthen hillfort of Herefordshire Beacon, police ask: is it a ritual killing, a gangland disposal or a cry of outrage? As Merrily and the police follow separate paths towards the truth, Merrily's teenage daughter, Jane, faces the consequences of her own obsession with a possibly prehistoric site in their home village of Ledwardine. Until, on a night of frenzied violence, in a place at the centre of an ancient, universal mystery, the final, shocking connections are made.

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