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'…mysteries in the classic sense, cleverly combining the supernatural and criminal elements to illuminate the darkest corners of our imaginations.'

John Connolly, author of Every Dead Thing and The White Road

'A can't-put-it-downer…magnificent in its evocation of the sinister countryside along the Welsh Border.'

Prof. Bernard Knight, Tangled Web

'Intrigue, lies, cover-ups, danger and the unexplainable… plot twists around every corner… a most provocative read.' 

Publishers' Weekly

'Rickman has virtually created a new genre. Highly entertaining… delivered with a panache we have come to expect.' 

Crimetime

'…can convey evil like no other writer… the writing is spare and inspired… a major talent unfolding before us.'

John Whitbourn SFX

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 help its new owners cope with the aftermath, diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins is sent in by the Bishop.  Already involved in the case of a schoolgirl whose deeply-religious mother thinks she's possessed by evil, the hesitant Merrily is drawn into a deadly tangle of deceit, corruption and sexual menace as she uncovers the secrets of a village with a past as twisted as the hop-bines that once enclosed it.

And, as Nigel Pember notes out in his perceptive Amazon review, sex seeps through this novel as darkly as the River Frome, as pervasively as the caramel scent of ripening hay… finding Merrily and Lol Robinson… and Jane, of course.  There's heat and rainstorms and a full moon.  There's a lot about the Romani gypsies who helped harvest the hops.  The Romani belief-system is complex and little-known, and I was very taken with something called the mulo, half ghost, half vampire, and everything it represents.