Customer Reviews

The Remains of an Altar (Merrily Watkins Mysteries)

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The latest book in the continuing saga of Merrily Watkins, Vicar of Ledwardine and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, may very well be one of the best. I have long thought that the late, great Ed McBain's 87 Precinct series was really one novel with over 50 parts and I think that Phil Rickman is well on the way to accomplishing the same thing with these books. After a series of really good horror novels (December is a classic) he changed direction and began writing mysteries with a touch of the supernatural. The locale is the Border country of Herefordshire, a place steeped in ancient history.

This book is brimming with interesting characters including Merrily, her 17 year old Daughter Jane, Lol Robinson and Gomer Parry, people we know and are always glad to see. This time there is the Rev. Syd Spicer, a former member of the SAS (think Special Ops in the US, but tougher) who doesn't seem too sure about how to handle his new profession and a return visit with the irascible Athena White. Like Mark Twain, Rickman writes dialogue in accents so authentic you can practically hear them. Conversations are so real you would think he overheard them instead of making them up.

Rickman is ever the master of misdirection. You may think you know what is happening but you will be proved wrong with a series of twists in the last chapters where the whole story is pulled together beautifully. No loose ends from this author.

There are a lot of books on the bestseller list that are done by talented hacks who throw them together quickly to please their legions of fans and that's alright for those who enjoy them but, with Rickman's books you are reading something very well written and carefully researched. Never stodgy but very modern and with a lot of humor, he will teach you fascinating things about the place where he lives.

Some have complained that this novel has no ghosts. Well, this is England, folks. The country is saturated with them. If you don't find them in the book, trust me, they are there, just lurking around the corner.

The Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, England is a rural area which has begun to become a fashionable address for gentry who have decided to desert city life. It offers pleasant vistas and a more or less relaxed lifestyle, and is most famous are the birthplace of Sir Edward Elgar. Just the place for Phil Rickman to place one of his stories about Merrily Watkins - minister, exorcist, and detective.

In the town of Wychehill Elgar is something of an industry, perhaps the only industry, with a church suited to large musical productions, a large collection of suburban supporters, and nothing else to say for itself. Oh, except for a new night club that makes more noise than the rest of the valley combined. And when a terrible accident that seems to involve the night club, drugs, and the ghost of Edward Elgar happens it is inevitable that Merrily will be called on to make sure that the dark world of the soul doesn't intrude on the lives of the townsfolk. Caught up in the dark beat of the night club, the rumors of ghosts, and the twisted lives of the inhabitants Merrily is stretched to her limits. This is one of those mysteries that offer no simple or comforting solutions.

Merrily's daughter Jane plays a starring part of her own again. She discovers that the area is host to any number of spiritual significances. A local ley line lays carefully hidden and the march of development threatens that layer of prehistory spirituality that haunts many parts of England and Wales. Jane, who is always susceptible to having causes takes up the preservation of the Ley line and quickly offends the more forward looking of Wychehill's residents.

Once again Rickman weaves a story on many levels full of characters new and old. He has an unmistakably powerful style that imbues evens with a menace that transcends the horror story and creates detective fiction with the complexities of doubt and faith. I have also come to enjoy the loving detail of his descriptions and enactments of life in the English countryside only a hope and a skip from Wales. By all means go back and hunt up the early volumes in this series and prepare to go on unexpected adventures that cross genres with nary a blink.

Merrily Watkins, Ledwardine parish priest and Deliverance Consultant (exorcist) for the Diocese of Hereford is stretched very thin in this eighth installment of a series that started with "The Wine of Angels" in 1998. Drugs, traffic accidents, and a ghost (possibly of composer Edward Elgar and his faithful bicycle, Phoebus) haunt the pages of this book. Rickman's subplots are just as engrossing as his main plots, and this mystery with supernatural overtones is, I think, the best so far of his Merrily Watkins novels.

Rickman, whose skills (as one of his characters puts it) have, "for too long, been squandered on three-chord wonders" finally integrates an English classical composer into one of his plots, where music always exists in one form or another--usually in the personage of Merrily's hapless boyfriend and folk-rock composer, Lol. This time Edward Elgar and his music take center stage, spooky bits and all. Even though he is not one of my favorite composers, I wanted to rush out and buy his oratorio, "The Dream of Gerontius" after finishing this novel. Rickman does an amazing job of integrating this Edwardian composer into the midst of a 21st century bloodscape of unexplained traffic fatalities, drugs, and murder. When Merrily is invited to exorcise the ghost that is supposedly causing the traffic accidents, she learns more about Elgar and the mystical Order of the Golden Dawn than any right-thinking Anglican priest should ever need to know.

Meanwhile, Merrily's teenage daughter, Jane embarks on a quixotic quest to Save the Ley Lines, that threatens to get her expelled from school when she tries to prevent the `development' of a local prehistoric site. At least she thinks the old cow pasture harbors a prehistoric monument. One of my favorite Rickman characters, old Gomer Parry, the manic digger-for-hire teams up with Jane, so I knew there was going to be a bang-up (I'm speaking literally, here) confrontation with the crooked developers, and I was not disappointed. Jane truly comes of age in "The Remains of an Altar." Gomer remains his feisty old self.

The two story lines are meshed elegantly together at story's end. As Merrily is standing under a statue of the Angel of the Agony (a character from Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius") and listening to a church choir sing the composer's music, her part of this story comes to a quietly eerie end. A short while later Jane's story also ends perfectly (although with a bit of off-stage assistance). Rickman fans will love this book, and readers new to this author should start with "The Wine of Angels" and read their way right through to the end of this complex, compassionate crime series.

These Merrily Watkins novels are extremely good, and Rickman's writing is superb. No one out there writes in this particular genre which is a mix of the occult, religion, and contemporary crime. This book is set in and around the Malvern Hills which are an extremely mystical range of hills along the Welsh/English border. The Village of Whychehill has some very well-kept secrets that Merrily stumbles upon when she goes to investigate a series of road accidents on a certain piece of road. There's a lot of history here with historical figures like Albert Watkins and Elgar the composer figuring large in the unravelling of the mystery. I love the way Rickman puts his readers right in the middle of all Merrily's unearthly messes! This is by far my most favourite series that I am reading right now, and I cannot recommend them enough to anyone who loves to read!

Was referred to this author and series by Diane Gabaldon (Outlander author) VERY very, very good series. My reading for this summer will be wonderful! I am a 66 year old bookworm. So many books, so little time. Yeh!!!!!!

This was my first Merrily Watkins novel, which in hindsight probably wasn't the best idea. As the eighth book in the on-going series, it assumes the reader has a familiarity with the characters and their relationships, leaving the newcomer a little lost at first. Still, the quality of the writing and the nature of the mystery genre mean that it's not impossible to catch up with the proceedings.

Merrily Watkins is a parish priest and Deliverance Consultant for those bothered by supernatural occurrences, with the added struggle of being a woman in a male-orientated profession and the mother of a teenage girl. In "Remains of an Altar" she is called to the Malvern Hills and the disparate village of Wychehill to investigate claims of a phantom bicyclist. He has been spotted riding down a rural road by several people and is said to be the cause of several road accidents, the latest of which has been fatal.

Merrily finds Wychehill to be a community that is strewn about what used to be quarried land, a place where everyone is strangely reluctant to speak and immensely difficult to get hold of. The only thing they have in common is their love for a large church and their distaste for a new nightclub run by a rumored drug-baron. Further complications arise when Merrily discovers the identity of the so-called ghost: many believe that it's the spirit of the famous composer Edward Elgar (best known for Pomp and Circumstance) who has been disturbed by the raucous noise of the nightclub.

Elgar was said to have loved the Malvern hills and been inspired enough by them to compose some of his greatest music, particularly The Dream of Gerontius. Performing an exorcism on such a soul is unthinkable, and Merrily finds herself required to tread lightly around the opposing factions of the town in her attempt to restore peace. But when a drug-dealer is found murdered on a local landmark, the police believe it to be a crime of outrage at the hands of someone in the community. Already caught up in the complex lives of the inhabitants, Merrily is drawn in further to offer up her detective skills in answer to the new spate of killings.

Meanwhile, her daughter Jane is on a crusade of her own, having found what she believes is a ley line in a paddock that has been designated for a new housing unit. Armed with a book by Alfred Watkins, one of the early writers about the existences of leys, and pitting herself against the corrupt village council, Jane attempts to save the prehistoric site from developers. It is only as the book goes on that the significant of this subplot in relation to Merrily's becomes clear as both mother and daughter learn more about the historical and cultural importance of the events they're investigating.

"The Remains of an Alter" is a mystery with a difference, but also a distinctive style that's all its own. Rickman utilizes dialogue to excellent effect; as with many mysteries, it makes up a fair percentage of the text and he shows a firm grasp of natural speech patterns whilst still relaying pertinent information. The mystery is rather long and tends to lag a little toward the end, but is tightly plotted throughout. The range of characters that Merrily interacts with are intriguing and realistic, and the book is given weight by extensive research into the figures and landscapes that are woven into the story.

This was my first Merrily Watkins mystery, but I doubt it'll be my last.

The topic is interesting, but it gets crushed by all the meandering. I found it quite disjointed.