Still reading . . .

I am still reading Phil Rickman. I rarely read a series back to back because I usually start getting bored after the first few but with the Merrily Watkins series I am number 8 with 2 more to go. I recently visited the author's web site and have discovered that he is working on another one www.philrickman.com

There is just so much packed into the books - ghosts, the supernatural, religion, paganism, local history and folk lore. Then there's the characters - Merrily herself and her teenage daughter Jane and her boyfriend Eirion; Gomer Parry - semi retired plant hire expert; Lol Robinson - singer, song writer and guitarist; Sophie - the Bishop's lay secretary; Frannie Bliss - detective and his boss - the ice maiden Annie Howe. Great stuff and I find myself totally lost in their world on the Hereford border with Wales.

When I get to the end of the series I have several other books to start on. Matt Haig's The Radleys; Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson; Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles; Sick Notes by Tony Copperfield. A fair old mixture there!

The stop press news is that I have finally ordered an e-book reader. I've been debating for about a year whether to get one. Now Amazon are selling a UK version of their very successful Kindle I'm going for that - which will be released at the end of August. I had favoured the Sony but having found out their latest one has a shiny screen I decided to go for the Kindle. I dislike reading books printed on shiny paper as I find them difficult to read so trying to read on a shiny screen could have been difficult.

Currently reading

Phil Rickman still - now it's number 6 in the series - The Prayer of the Night Shepherd which involves a spooky hotel, a small village and an alternative source of inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. I remember being not quite so keen on this book when I first read it but I suspect that was because I read it in very small chunks. Some books need to be read in longish sessions I think.

I found The Lamp of the Wicked - number 5 in the series - compelling reading. The background to it the Fred West murder cases and a possible copy cat killer - with of course supernatural elements. A very good and thought provoking mystery.

More books read

I finished Phil Rickman's 'To Dream of the Dead' last night and excellent it was too. A bit different from his usual Merrily Watkins books as there was very little about her part time job as official exorcist to the diocese of Hereford. There was some very murky corruption going on in the local council and involving a charismatic TV archaeologist and a murder. The advent of a headline making atheist author living incognito to escape threats from various places, next door to a possible prehistoric pagan site which the archaeologist is digging serves to stir things up - if only with the local fundamentalist Christian. The action of the novel takes place over the few days leading up to Christmas and is punctuated by a rapidly rising river threatening to cut off the village of Ledwardine. A very tense and fast paced thriller.

I finished - at last - Anne Brooke's 'Maloney's Law' - not a comfortable book to read including as it does some very murky business dealings. I did like Paul, the private investigator, and thought his upbringing had a huge bearing on the problems he found himself immersed in. I was less sure about Dominic. I thought the ending was appropriate and I feel hopeful about Paul's future prospects. I thought the way Paul always comments about how long it's been since something happened interesting and it fitted his particular personality. He really likes to keep control of things and that quality is also shown by his series of Maloney's Laws. I've only one bone to pick with you, Anne, and that's what you did to Jade - how could you??!! I really liked her and thought she was an interesting character. I have posted a review on Amazon for you - without any comments about Jade as that would have potentially given away some of the plot.

Phil Rickman

I have just emerged blinking into the sunlight having read Phil Rickman's latest installment in his series about Merrily Watkins, parish priest and part time 'Deliverance consultant'. To the uninitiated this is the current term for the old fashioned exorcist. For anyone who wants to know exactly what an exorcist does these are excellent. This is understated horror with insights into all things occult, including in this volume - 'The Fabric of Sin' - a foray into the murkier regions of Templar history in Britain not to speak of a sinister masonic influence.

What is most interesting to someone who has read the rest of the series is the development of characters - Merrily's teenaged daughter Jane is growing up but not losing her enquiring mind, Merrily's relationship with Lol is developing and deepening. Frannie Bliss - the policeman is still there as is Gomer Parry the former plant hire man and stalwart of the village of Ledwardine in Herefordshire on the border with Wales. The village - fictional - reminds me of Ludlow with its black and white houses. The real Hereford appears as well, and of course the cathedral there features.

I thoroughly recommend this series for a well written and well researched clutch of novels showing the darker side of life and the Church of England. They deserve to be better known. As do the novels of Kate Charles and Susan Howatch. Kate Charles does not cover quite the same ground and her novels usually feature a crime, though the background is the clergy and the Church. Susan Howatch in her trilogy about the St Benet's healing centre - 'The Wonder Worker', 'The High Flyer' and 'The Heartbreaker' covers similar ground though more about the ministry of healing than the deliverance ministry. Her 6 Starbrdge novels do touch on deliverance though.