Phil Rickman: Midwinter of the Spirit (UK 2011)

From the Publisher:
'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.

'The paranormal investigator with a down-to-earth attitude. This is no rural paradise' Sunday Telegraph

Phil Rickman: Midwinter of the Spirit. Corvus, ISBN: 9780857890108 (June, 2011), 560 p., £8.99.

Phil Rickman: Midwinter of the Spirit (UK 2000)

From the Publisher:
When offered the post once styled 'diocesan exorcist', the Revd Merrily Watkins - parish priest and single parent - cannot easily refuse. But the retiring exorcist, strongly objecting to women priests, not only refuses to help Merrily but ensures that she's soon exposed to the job at its most terrifying. And things get 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 there are signs of dark ritual on a hill overlooking the city. Meanwhile, reports of psychic unrest in the Cathedral itself - where the famous shrine of St Thomas Cantilupe lies in fragments - reflect an undying evil lying close to the heart of the Church itself.

Phil Rickman: Midwinter of the Spirit. A Merrily Watkins Mystery. Pan, ISBN: 033037401X (March, 2000), 539 p., £5.99.

Phil Rickman: Midwinter of the Spirit (UK 1999)

From the Publisher:
It is a little known fact that every diocese in Britain must appoint a Deliverance minister, answerable only to the Bishop, who deals with reports of disturbing psychological phenomena, occult malpractice and spiritual infestation. Some dioceses have to deal with as many as 100 cases a year. Many reports are fraudulent or open to rational explanation - but some are certainly not.

Phil Rickman's Midwinter of The Spirit is based on established spiritual procedure and is the second book to feature Merrily Watkins - single parent, nicotine addict and the Vicar of Ledwardine, a picturesque Herefordshire parish. Merrily is also Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, and it is not long before murder, suicide and psychic unrest begin to reflect an undying evil at work - which Merrily must confront, along with a dark secret which lies dose to the heart of the Anglican church itself.

Phil Rickman: Midwinter of the Spirit. Macmillan, ISBN: 0333751736 (October, 1999), 534 p., £16.99.