I'm baaaaack. With a special book review for Halloween
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All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Just in time for Halloween, Phil Rickman, master of "gothic crime fiction" (for lack of a better term) is back with the best Merrily Watkins book in a while. If you haven't met her in books 1-13, Merrily is a C-of-E vicar in the village of Ledwardine (on the metaphysical grey area between England and Wales) who specializes in "night work," excursions into the paranormal that frequently culminate in exorcism. Merrily has a neo-pagan teenage daughter to worry about and a former folk-rocker boyfriend who worries about her.
In this latest excursion, Merrily is drawn into the pagan world when she witnesses a bizarre midnight ritual in her own churchyard at the graveside of a young man whose recent death has raised rumors about drug use and rural family feuds in the community. Hint: It involves sinister morris dancers. (No, really! Very scary, they.)
There are lots of other wonderful supporting characters who pop in from time to time in the series, but this latest is back-to-basics in characters and setting, though coppers Annie Howe and Frannie Bliss provide a solid subplot that links up, of course, to Merrily's night work) Rickman has said you don't need to read the books in order. But if you do, you'll get an interesting social/cultural evolution of rural village life spanning 1998-2017, and you'll get to know his great characters even better.
View all my reviews

All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Just in time for Halloween, Phil Rickman, master of "gothic crime fiction" (for lack of a better term) is back with the best Merrily Watkins book in a while. If you haven't met her in books 1-13, Merrily is a C-of-E vicar in the village of Ledwardine (on the metaphysical grey area between England and Wales) who specializes in "night work," excursions into the paranormal that frequently culminate in exorcism. Merrily has a neo-pagan teenage daughter to worry about and a former folk-rocker boyfriend who worries about her.
In this latest excursion, Merrily is drawn into the pagan world when she witnesses a bizarre midnight ritual in her own churchyard at the graveside of a young man whose recent death has raised rumors about drug use and rural family feuds in the community. Hint: It involves sinister morris dancers. (No, really! Very scary, they.)
There are lots of other wonderful supporting characters who pop in from time to time in the series, but this latest is back-to-basics in characters and setting, though coppers Annie Howe and Frannie Bliss provide a solid subplot that links up, of course, to Merrily's night work) Rickman has said you don't need to read the books in order. But if you do, you'll get an interesting social/cultural evolution of rural village life spanning 1998-2017, and you'll get to know his great characters even better.
View all my reviews






























