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Prayer Of The Night Shepherd: A Revd Merrily Watkins Mystery (A Merrily Watkins Mystery)

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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.

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.

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....

This is the first novel I've read by Phil Rickman and I am gleeful to know there are scores of novels out there by him that I get to stick my nose into.

Since I haven't read any other Merrily Watkin's novels yet, I can say that 'Prayer of the Night Shepherd,' can be read and enjoyed as a stand alone novel, as I am sure all of the series' novels can. The important thing is that you read them - if you like storms, mystery, legends, ghosts, and tales shrouded in mystery, then this is a book for you!

The borderland between England and Wales is steeped in legends, hauntings and old lore. Lonely rural areas can be stressful for folks who've ran the farm as their father's worked on them for decades before. Rock formations and old lodgings have strange powerful energies that can be good or bad and Merrily Watkins, Angelican Reverend of Ledwardine, is there to sort it all out.

In the cold, stormy atmosphere of the Welsh countryside, Stanner Hall Hotel risks going under, unless it's new owners can actually prove that Arthur Conan Doyle based, "The Hounds of Baskerville," on the legend of the demon dog of Hergest Court, after he stayed in Stanner Hall instead of where present credit is given. Merrily's 17 year old daughter, Jane, is enjoying her first job as helper at Stanner Hall and her mother, the Reverend would be shocked if she knew what the residents were up to. Even Jane gets a bit jittery when she realizes the truth. And Stanner Hall is steeped in mystery and hauntings based on it's previous questionable residents, who, by chance have offspring wandering about who are less then wholesome.

Merrily has her hands full as it is with her recent healing of a local girl believed to have been healed by prayer at the new casual Sunday Evensong gathering as other's bring her a hard case to be healed by the bewildered, reluctant Reverend who only meant Evensong to bring in more folks to the church.

There are mulitple story lines and the local characters are endearing in 'The Prayer for the Night Sherpard' as they deal with old legends, local hauntings, storms and mysteries and murders.

Based on what I've read in this book, I have ordered books by this auther under the name Will Kingdom, and other Merrily books as well as his stand alone books such as Curfew and Crybbe. I will report more on them later. This book, as the wind starts blowing and the temperature drops - hot tea and a cosy place to read is in order.

I love Phil Rickman and his Reverend Merrily Watkins series, and this is probably one of the best "caught in a snowstorm" stories that I've ever read. The action takes place very close to Christmas in Merrily's village (Ledwardine) and in a gothic castle located right on the English and Welsh border. The area itself is full of mystery, and the old house has many of its own secrets that it keeps while it sits brooding in amongst the hills. Jane, Merrily's daughter, is working weekends up at this old house since it is now a hotel, and she stumbles on a real hornet's nest of intrigue and bad karma. Ancient secrets are about to be ripped open and this unleashes an evil that seems to come from the soil itself. Merrily is called in to do an excorcism to help free the house from its brooding and malignant prescence, and while she and Jane are there a murder occurs. No one can do this sort of story like Phil Rickman. His characters are simply wonderful. I simply can't put these books down once I've begun one. I absolutely love them!

This sixth in Rickman's Merrily Watkins series picks up after several of the more dramatic volumes in the series and finds the diocesian exorcist and minister of Ledwardine confronting a thorny problem. Merrily has started having informal evensong services and unexpectedly, one of the attendees is cured of a fatal tumor. Merrily isn't ready to accept this sudden sign of the Lord's blessing at face value, but her congregation does. Now she must deal with her and the church's mixed attitude toward healing. Which, she discovers, many think goes hand in hand with exorcism.

The other piece of good/bad news is that Jane, Merrily's daughter and chief critic, has managed to get a weekend job as waitress and general assistant at a struggling new inn that is trying to use its tenuous connection to Arthur Conan Doyle and the hound of the Baskervilles to build a clientele. All of this on the forbidding border with Wales where, as we are often reminded, long memories and getting even is a way of life. The legends of the area include a number of characters almost as grim as their remaining heirs. Throw in mysterious black dogs and bulls, a fair amount of inherited insanity, séances, and film crews and you have the perfect environment for trouble. As usual, Jane's youthful enthusiasm leads her into the worst of the fray.

Merrily must cope with healing, spiritism, a terminally determined daughter and her blossoming relationship with Lol. Compelled by her nature she is soon in the thick of things, trying to deal with phenomena that are unresponsive to either intellect or faith. The result is a complex story that is part history, part supernatural, and part psychological thriller. Rickman is one of the few writers who seem to be able to bring the supernatural into a mystery story without destroying the overall effect.

For all the darkness of the themes, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd is much lighter in tone than the past few volumes. Not for lack of horrible events but because Jane's self confidence and Lol's gentle wisdom balance Merrily's introspectiveness perfectly. The inner story that develops around them keeps some of the dark insanity around them at bay. I found myself enjoying the break, as well as all the bits of Sherlockiana and bleak border history. For all that this is volume 7, it stands pretty well on its own. I've managed to read this series completely out of order and don't feel I missed anything but an occasional bit of context.