Customer Reviews

The Cure of Souls (A Merrily Watkins Mystery)

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The Cure of Souls, Rickman's fourth novel featuring the Rev. Merrily Watkins, finds her settled, more or less, into her role as diocesan deliverance minister. But in spite of the experience she has gained, the job seems only to grow more difficult; this case in particular so blurs the line between good and evil that Merrily begins to doubt herself, uncertain how--or even whom--to free from spiritual bondage.
The diseased crops of the Frome Valley are an apt metaphor for the psychic condition of those now living there. Something is sucking the life out of not only the land but of the residents as well. What remains of the once flourishing valley draped in hop bines is now a rural waste-landscape.
The land's loss of vitality is painfully evident to Lol Robinson, Merrily's would-be lover, who is about to re-enter Merrily's life.
After going off to take courses in psychotherapy, Lol is led by his professor to the Frome Valley's legendary luthier, Al Boswell, from whom Lol learns not only about the region's gypsy heritage, but that the Romany ways still pervade the lives of those who live ... and die ... in there. And from this culture there comes a psychic adversary as mysterious as the Romany themselves.
Lol's close encounter with the legendary "Lady of the bines" leads him to the vicarage of Reverend Simon St. John and his wife, the intriguing Isabel. Simon's refusal to exorcise the possesed house belonging a local "entrepreneur" places the task in Merrily's hands as local exorcist. Merrily, Lol and Simon soon realize that it will take all three of them--and more--to deliver this town from the evil that plagues it.
In perfect contrast to the wilt and waste of the main setting is the continued flourishing of Merrily's "flower," her indomitable daughter Jane. Rickman's secondary plot, that of Jane's journey into young womanhood and her own spiritual and psychic quest, provides a wonderful parallel to the main storyline. And in a way that he does probably better than any other writer in the business, Rickman deftly weaves the threads of Jane's tale into the main textual fabric, adding to the narrative tension and the intrigue.
Phil Rickman's The Cure of Souls is a sophisticated blend--part ghost story, part detective story, part myth--that will not disappoint. He has an unerring ability to bring each character fully alive and make every scene in which he places them frighteningly believable. This book was just 'The Cure' this reader needed.

Rickman's fourth Merrily Watkins mystery (and ninth book overall) has our diocesian exorcist (or deliverance minister) struggling as always to deal with her life fighting the supernatural and the very real troubles of bringing up her sixteen year old, daughter, Jane, plus her own personal issues. From the start, the chain-smoking minister finds herself having to deal with a claimed case of demonic possession as a previously well brought up and God-fearing teenage girl, Amy Shelbourne, starts renouncing God and refusing to go to Church to the dismay of her devout foster parents. We are quickly given a reason as Amy claims (which we know is a lie from the opening prologue) that Jane forced her into a ouija board session and she met the spirit of her real mother, Justine.
Running concurrently is a plotline involving Lol Robinson (he who denies his true feelings for Merrily) who is back in the recording studios, down the road from Merrily, at Prof Levinson's request to record a new album. Meanwhile, in Knight's Frome we find the new-age squire, Adam Lake, rebuying all the land up that his ancestor lost under a curse. The story runs that if you see the ghost of centuries-ago murdered Lady of the Bines (whom Lol inadvertently runs into very early on) then your hop harvest will fail. Lake runs into a PR adversary, Gerard Stock, the son-in-law of the recently murdered Stewart who has inherited land that Lake wants to rebuy. As such a very neighbourly feud takes on a supernatural slant as Stock goes to the papers after the local vicar, Simon St John, refuses to perform an exorcism on the place that Stock, claims is haunted.
By the time we make it halfway through, Amy Shelbourne has attempted suicide and Merrily is called into Stock's house to perform the first exorcism (or `Cure of Souls'). It is at this point the novel begins to move as Stock not only records Lol and Merrily's incursion but also his immediate brutal killing of his wife. Amy runs away and her father is forced to explain to Merrily how Amy's real mother was killed in a church whilst a 3-year old Amy watched from the altar. Suddenly it all becomes more chilling as Merrily confronts Layla Riddock and her stepfather. Meanwhile the, as yet unfathomably linked, second plot has Gerard Stock killing himself before we finally begin to piece behind the true mystery of the Lady of the Bines and an unknown murder in the 60s that is causing the haunting of the kiln by a succubus. In a strange twist it is actually Jane and Eirion who come back from Wales to move the entire story to its bloody denouement as we learn that our protagonists are capable of great character misjudgement and what appears to be truth is inevitably incorrect.
To be honest, this isn't Rickman's finest effort. I felt that the move towards a Merrily Watkins series has taken away the polished supernatural edge books like Crybbe and December possessed. The first half of this book is given over to establishing mystery of the intellectually confusing kind, rather than previous efforts which spent the first half ever so slowly building up a sense of creeping, chilly supernatural fear. Simply put, whilst you wouldn't read Crybbe on a dark, stormy night, you could quite cheerfully skim through this effort. Nevertheless, Rickman's currently the finest supernatural thriller writer out there right now and this is the kind of quality effort you'd expect.

Not having read all of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins stories it's a bit forward to say that The Cure of Souls is the best or the spookiest or any other such superlative. But rest assured, this one will magnetize you in spite of it's length as it draws you into an intense dissertation on the nature of evil as Merrily, still new to the role of deliverance minister (exorcist) confronts a darkness that confuses the innocent and the guilty, condemned to repeat itself like the hearth and field rituals that it imitates.

The pieces of this tale are complex. Merrily's daughter Jane falls in with a high school divining circle led by a wannabee gypsy witch, rich, spoiled, and to brash to realize the price of her own selfish manipulations. When Merrily herself tries tohelp on of the girls Jane's own actions cause Merrily's motives to be questioned. Then Merrily agrees to an exorcism that fails spectacularly with murder and death shortly to follow. She finds herself catapulted into a public role that could mean the loss of her ministry and all that she treasures. And Lol, the closest thing Merrily has to a romantic interest, finds himself in the same complex web when he sets out to help an old friend build a music studio in one of the old hop kilns that dot the Herefordshire countryside and runs into the echo of a legend of an older murder.

Rickman uses a rich pallet of local color to make this tale of parallel murders and possession to make this a tale something more than a murder mystery. Merrily's Herefordshire is caught in a conflict between the old traditions of hop farming and oncoming gentrification. Old money, the new rich and the simpler folk of town and country all participate in making this story as memorable for its characters as it is for the story itself. Merrily, Lol, and Jane are all at turning points in their lives, each facing an identity crisis of one sort or another, and the terrible mystery of an exorcism gone wrong brings each up short as they face their own lives.

If The Cure of Souls isn't one of Rickman's best, I'm not sure what would be. The author displays a rare sure hand in both character and narration. The story combines looming darkness with flashes of wry humor in a delicate balance that makes its 560 pages seem too short.

Cure of Souls is the fourth novel in Phil Rickman's supernatural thrillers concerning Merrily Watkins -- Anglican priest, Vicar of Ledwardine, and newly appointed Minister of Deliverance (formerly: exorcist) for the diocese of Herefordshire.

Oh, dear -- a mystery series about a woman priest!

When my book-business partner Debbie told me she was reading a supernatural mystery series about a female Anglican priest, warning bells went off. My Debfriend was high on the books, but I was reluctant to take her up on her offer to share. Would the controversy over women priests dominate the writer's point of view? Would I find subtle or not so subtle digs at my beloved Catholic Church, which maintains an all-male priesthood?

Happily, this was not the case. True, one thread of plot throughout the series concerns the Anglican church's response, as a social body, to the institutional novelty of female clergy. Tradition runs high in the rural villages of England in which the novels are set. How will these folks respond to a female vicar?

But that thread of plot does not dominate, nor does the author beat us over the head with the Rightness of women priests.

That doesn't mean I can give Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins stories an unqualified endorsement. The books disturb me, and I'm not sure why. Anne Rice's vampire stories had a similar effect on me. What the two series may have in common is the creation of vital characters going through credible dilemmas in atmospheres permeated with unhappiness, discouragement and even despair.

Cure of Souls finds Merrily called in to examine 16-year-old Amy Shelbone, a formerly devout schoolgirl who has undergone a profound personality change. Her pious parents are alarmed by Amy's increasing reluctance to attend church and her seemingly preternatural knowledge of unknown facts. They call for aid from the diocese's deliverance ministry after Amy becomes violently and publicly ill during a communion service. Merrily visits Amy at her parents' request, but Amy refuses to see her and wildly denounces God, religion, and all vestiges of religious belief.

Meanwhile, Merrily's 17-year old daughter Jane is taking summer vacation with her boyfriend Eirion and his well-to-do family in their home in Wales. Eirion has indicated he would like to take their relationship "to the next level", and Jane is anxious to prove to the ostensibly experienced Eirion that she is ready to become a "full-fledged woman." As Jane discovers that what Eirion's parents had in mind with their invitation was an unpaid au pair to take care of his step-siblings, she realizes that her participation in a clandestine Ouija board session at school may have had more impact on classmate Amy Shelbone than she had imagined.

In a separate plot thread, series regular Lol Robinson takes temporary lodgings in nearby Frome Valley, in a small cottage that is being converted into a recording studio by producer/engineer Prof Levin. Levin hopes Lol will find inspiration there to rekindle his stalled career as a singer/songwriter.

On the deserted hop fields near the banks of the Frome River, Lol encounters a ghost-like lady who is naked except for the long, dry, twining hop-bines that rustle as she walks. Is she real or an apparition? Lol takes the question to Al and Sally Boswell, a couple who act as curators of the Hop Museum and possess intimate knowledge of local history. Al gives Lol a beautifully handcrafted Boswell guitar, while Sally tells him the legend of the Lady of the Bines, who is said to haunt the hop fields that once provided the economic bounty of the Valley.

Raw from her failure to get through to Amy in any manner, Merrily is called to the Frome Valley to perform a spiritual cleansing of a hop-kiln owned by obnoxious, publicity-seeking Gerard Stock and his odd wife Stephanie. Lol and Merrily meet again as Lol attends the cleansing ritual to protect Merrily's reputation -- the newspapers have gotten wind of it and plan to do a nasty piece about the absurdity of exorcism in this day and age.

The cleansing goes awry, and the resulting tragedy elevates the event to a crisis that not only calls into question the deliverance ministry but threatens Merrily's very right to continue as a priest in the Church of England.

As always, Rickman has thoroughly researched his topics. In Cure of Souls these include Romany (or gypsy) lifestyle; the cultivation of hops in rural England; deliverance ministry in the Church of England; and the tension between developers and preservationists in old English villages and lands. Chapters have intriguing titles like "Full of Dead People", "God and Music", "Drukerimaskri", and "Avoiding the Second Death". As with previous Merrily Watkins novels, the book is a page-turner.

So what's the problem? I am not sure. As with Anne Rice, I feel uneasy after reading this exploration of the natural and the supernatural. Merrily herself doesn't so much solve murders as stir up the forces that bring hidden sins into the light. She is an appealing heroine - full of faith although mostly lacking in consolations; dedicated to her ministry, but always one step away from losing it to forces both natural and un-.

The best I can say is that I know I will read the next book in the series - but not right away. I need time to recover between immersions into Rickman's imagined world. I care about these characters. I want to see them victorious over the powers and principalities that make their influence felt with pervading menace rather than dramatic manifestations.

Perhaps, in the end, it is the lack of full sacramental help, of the kind available to Catholic priests, that makes Merrily's adventures in deliverance so scary to me. (Yes, I know that betrays my Catholic sacramental belief, but I cannot be other than I am.) The natural and supernatural evils portrayed have an authentic ring to them. Merrily and her loyal band of friends seem always on the verge of being swallowed whole by the chaos. The light of Christ gleams through the books, but in muted hues.

Wonderfull stuff as always! Rickman can scare the knickers off you using less blood and gore than you'd see in 7 minutes of the 6:00 o'clock news. I had to stop reading it for a few months (not that I WANTED to), but when I resumed, I read about two paragraphs and was right back into the thick of it, how often does that happen? Only with the finest of tales.
Excellent Story story line! His lean writing makes for a good read and you still see it all in your head.
Lol and Simon are back! Relive your school day fears, insecurities, and weird classmates. Wander around bleak countrysides with deja vu by your side. Learn about hops. Visit some gypsies. Remember losing your virginity, remember wanting to lose it. Get really really scared.
Feed the cat because you will be gone for awhile,You will be there!
I'd get posessed just to meet Merrily Watkins!

The (fictional) Church of England, wishing to change the perception of the medieval concept of exorcism, has formed a new branch, Deliverance Ministry. Selected to lead this new endeavor is the Reverend Merrily Watkins, divorced single mom who is devoted to bringing her religion in line with current secular thinking. Merrily is requested to consult on the case of an adolescent girl whose mother suspects demonic possession. Merrily is concerned, becoming even more so when she hears that her own 16 year old daughter may play a role in this problem. At the same time, the reverend becomes reluctantly involved in an even more ominous case, reverberations from a gruesome murder that took place in a hop-kiln that's being converted to a residence. Soon Merrily finds herself embroiled in local politics, past and present, and a malignant force too murky to be identified.

Set in England's picturesque, historic Marches, The Cure of Souls is a seamless blend of mystery and paranormal elements, one that incorporates historic themes (the Lady of the Bines) and modern pressures that are all too real. Rickman writes beautifully, with subtlety, and it's often hard to decide what's "real" and what's supernatural. Though classified as horror, his Watkins series might more accurately be considered as eerily suspenseful, rarely containing the stuff of nightmares, and this is what makes them so compelling and credible. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, the existence of evil is virtually certain, and Rickman's novels, with their engaging characters and intelligent, riveting plots, should captivate fans of both mystery and the paranormal.

I don't know how many times I've started in on a promising series only for the quality of the writing and stories to dip quickly after the first book or two. Not so with this series. Rickman consistently turns out amazing stories with a cast of characters so realistic they could live nextdoor. He also has the extremely rare ability to write stories where the hinging point is religion--as all the Merrily Watkins books are--without using it as a pulpit to sway anyone, or to say that any one religion is better than the other. They are simply masterful stories and darn good reads.

I have been a fan of Rickman since first reading Curfew some years ago, and have always had a difficult time shutting of my bed lamp and putting his books aside.
If you're interested in this book, I strongly suggest you go back to the beginning, and start with Wine of Angels. While no one installment of the series is necessarily dependent on one another, the Merrily Watkins mysteries are a progression of the character. You wouldn't want to start dating someone and immediately start ordering take out and watching a video on Saturday night while you folded your laundry would you?
There also events in Merrily's person life that will have less context without the background.
If you have not read Rickans previous works in the horror genre and are inclined, you would do well to read December, which lends an extra dimension to the history of some of the secondary characters, who I am happy to say haven't lost any of their identity with their inclusion in this new work.
These are mystery novels, and in spite of that Rickman manages to maintain the very necessary element of the other worldly which set them apart. But he doesn't bludgeon you with it.
I have been a sometime mystery fan, and a long time horror fan. Rickman blends these two elements subtly and with skill.
His writing style, and this is probably the most important element of the review, is such that you want to keep reading. You want to finish the next chapter, you want to know what goes on next.

Having read most of Phil Rickman's other books, I knew what to expect from this one. I was not disappointed. Characters are complex and three-dimesional and the plot is satisfyingly complex, with a twist I guarantee you won't see coming. I think this is one of the pivotal books of the series as relationships develop and characters you've grown to love in other books are revealed in greater detail.
I think I've found my new favourite in the series. Fabulous reading.You won't be able to put it down.

I love this series. Phil Rickmam draws you in quickly and completely. The reader can feel and see the story unfold with perfect timimg.