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Rating: 
Summary: Elementary, Rev. Watkins
Review: Phil Rickman's latest novel, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd, has it all -- the historical legend of Black Vaughn and the Black Dog, the literary legend of Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles, the Rev. Merrily Watkins, the local "deliverance minister" (read "exorcist")whose work is fast becoming legend in the village of Ledwardine -- as well as a number of local murders, past and present, that are very real indeed. The result is a psychological thriller and supernatural whodunnit, artfully anchored in the culture and landscape of the Welsh border.
Merrily and her 17 year-old daughter, Jane, share center stage in Rickman's latest effort. Jane, now an "independent working woman on the Border," has just taken her first "real job," working weekends at a possibly haunted hotel owned by Ben and Amber Foley, a couple "from Off". Ben, a one-time TV producer, and Antony Largo, a Scottish film-maker, enlist Jane and take advantage of her enthusiam to help them with a project -- recording a seance to be held at the Foley's hotel. However, during the filming, Jane discovers that her co-workers and the guests at Stanner Hall are not what -- or who-- she was lead to believe.
Back at the Vicarage, Merrily has reluctantly agreed to use her newly-emerging healing ability to help the rather unpleasant nephew of a parishioner become free of the anxiety-induced asthma that has plagued him since childhood and the tragic death of his young cousin. She must also play the good shepherd trying to save a young sheep rancher bent on suicide, having found himself caught in a dangerous game of fox and hound with a local landowner and his hired thugs.
Rickman once again works his literary magic, blending disparate themes with a diverse cast of richly-written characters. The result is a taut narrative fusion of the supernatural and detective genres, what Rickman calls "a spiritual procedural," and he makes this story all the more intriguing with what is becoming another hallmark of the Merrily Watkins series: the intricate lacing of fiction with fact. Whether you're already a fan of the Rev. Watkins or a first-time reader, you won't be disappointed with Phil Rickman's latest offering.
Rating: 
Summary: The best of the Watkins series but no Crybbe...
Review: Rickman's sixth Merrily Watkins is a huge improvement over the past couple of efforts. With its snowbound denoument it redraws the Rickman reader back into a chilling novel that makes reading this novel at night not something to do easily. Rickman, over the last few novels - essentially the Merrily series - has moved from supernatural to crime thrillers with a supernatural edge and whilst he is making a grand attempt at creating what might be a new genre, it's not quite as good as his purer supernatural efforts.
In this latest, Jane has a greater starring role as she moves into womanhood - to Merrily's reluctance - by taking a weekend job up at Stanner Hall near Kington. Jane is working as a kitchen maid for Ben Foley and his wife, Amber (who is acting as the chef) who have resurrected Stanner Hall as a hotel. Dead keen to get the place established Ben is eager to prove the link that the plotline for the Conan Doyle story, Hound of the Baskervilles, was actually based on events initiated by the Chancer family several centuries back and not based on Devonshire links. Inevitably the theory is holding no water with the firmly established Baker League, but is with the White, a spiritual group keen to adhere to the spiritualism that dominates much of Doyle's later life.
Two plots lines run (though they must inevitably merge) - the first that of Stanner Hall and the local magistrate, Sebastian Dacre JP. The latter has hired some locals to hunt down a huge black dog he feels is savaging his flock which has its home on the farm of Jeremy Berrows (whose girlfriend, Natalie is also the Stanner Hall hotel manager). This enables our ever-friendly Gomer Parry and Danny to get involved in a few fights whilst Jane runs around trying to make sense of the seances that are now being held at Stanner Hall. The other plot line has our erstwhile self-doubting Deliverance Minister trying to stop her new Sunday service turning into a miracle parlour. She focuses on one Dexter Harris (unwitting culprit in a joyriding tragedy when he was a child) whose boorish character overshadows a greater truth. Unwittingly herself, Merrily finds herself the target for two groups to perform an exorcism whilst in the background a hereditary insanity wreaks revenge on the Kington farmers.
The lengthy denouement brings the usual cast of characters of Jane, Lol, Gomer, Merrily, DI Bliss et al together during a snow-bound night at Stanner Hall after Dacre is found dead and the child murderess, Brigid Parsons, claims guilt and a desire to confess all to Merrily. As deception becomes clear and Rickman unravels the family histories and personal links amongst our protagonists it all begins to make a painful sense as he expertly weaves stark relationships in with a spritism that brings Merrily together with all for an exorcism before the all too-human culprit is found.
There is no doubt that Rickman is a fine author and he expertly crafts crime thrillers that have that touch of chilling supernatural fear, creating an ambience that the reader can easily visualise and be drawn in to. My only problem is that Rickman's authorship began as pure supernatural thrillers and his legion of fans for that reason will find themselves with a creeping disappointment as the Watkins series becomes more and more of a crime thriller with a meagre touch of the supernatural. In fact, if it ended up on ITV shortly it wouldn't be a surprise. So, as brilliant as ever and Rickman demonstrates yet again the skills of an author at the peak of his powers, but, for this reader at least, I'd like more of the supernatural and less of the crime....
Rating:
Summary: The Hound of the Baskervilles Not
Review: Stories of phantom black dogs abound in Britain. Almost every county has its own variant, from the Black Shuck of East Anglia to the Bogey Beast of Yorkshire. In this novel, the ghost hound of Herefordshire on the Welsh border foreshadows a death in the Vaughan family. This family is also cursed with an ancestor named Black Vaughan, who is believed by the author to be the basis for the hellish Hugo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Did Sir Arthur really take his tale of the phosphorescent Hound from the Welsh Border rather than foggy Dartmoor? Rickman's theory on the origins of 'The Hound' appeared in the most recent issue of the magazine "Sherlock."
Evidently this author discovered that Herefordshire had a population of medieval Baskervilles, not to mention Mortimers and Stapletons, and many local people still refuse to walk near Black Vaughan's home of Hergest Croft at night for fear of seeing his ghost and that of his hound. Sherlock Holmes fans might want to read this book just to ferret out Rickman's research on Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous dog story.
Since "The Prayer of the Night Shepherd" is also a Merrily Watkins procedural, many familiar characters appear from Rickman's previous novels. Merrily, Vicar of Ledwardine and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford reluctantly takes on a new role as a healer of physical ailments. Gomer Parry, the manic digger-for-hire who is one of my favorite Rickman creations, has a minor walk-on. Merrily's daughter Jane is as usual, in the thick of the supernatural goings-on at Stanner Hall. Poor Lol, the musician is still trying to spend quality time with Merrily, but is thwarted by a snowstorm, a couple of attempted murders, an attempted suicide, and a real murder--not to mention a phantom hound. This book is an unsettling mix of murder mystery, indigestible lumps of Rickman's 'Hound' research, and swirls of supernatural vapor. What really happened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when or if he visited Herefordshire? What did Jane really experience in the tower room under the witch's hat at Stanner Hall? What did the medium from the White Company really see? I was left scratching my head over this latest installment of Merrily Watkins's venture into the dim, dangerous netherworld of Anglican theology.
Rating:
Summary: The Hound of the Baskervilles Not
Review: Stories of phantom black dogs abound in Britain. Almost every county has its own variant, from the Black Shuck of East Anglia to the Bogey Beast of Yorkshire. In this novel, the ghost hound of Herefordshire on the Welsh border foreshadows a death in the Vaughan family. This family is also cursed with an ancestor named Black Vaughan, who is believed by the author to be the basis for the hellish Hugo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Did Sir Arthur really take his tale of the phosphorescent Hound from the Welsh Border rather than foggy Dartmoor? Rickman's theory on the origins of 'The Hound' appeared in the most recent issue of the magazine "Sherlock."
Evidently this author discovered that Herefordshire had a population of medieval Baskervilles, not to mention Mortimers and Stapletons, and many local people still refuse to walk near Black Vaughan's home of Hergest Croft at night for fear of seeing his ghost and that of his hound. Sherlock Holmes fans might want to read this book just to ferret out Rickman's research on Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous dog story.
Since "The Prayer of the Night Shepherd" is also a Merrily Watkins procedural, many familiar characters appear from Rickman's previous novels. Merrily, Vicar of Ledwardine and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford reluctantly takes on a new role as a healer of physical ailments. Gomer Parry, the manic digger-for-hire who is one of my favorite Rickman creations, has a minor walk-on. Merrily's daughter Jane is as usual, in the thick of the supernatural goings-on at Stanner Hall. Poor Lol, the musician is still trying to spend quality time with Merrily, but is thwarted by a snowstorm, a couple of attempted murders, an attempted suicide, and a real murder--not to mention a phantom hound. This book is an unsettling mix of murder mystery, indigestible lumps of Rickman's 'Hound' research, and swirls of supernatural vapor. What really happened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when or if he visited Herefordshire? What did Jane really experience in the tower room under the witch's hat at Stanner Hall? What did the medium from the White Company really see? I was left scratching my head over this latest installment of Merrily Watkins's venture into the dim, dangerous netherworld of Anglican theology.
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