Product Description

A disused church near a Welsh border hamlet has already been sold off by the Church when it's discovered that the new owners are 'pagans' who intend to use the building for their own rituals. The local rector, an extreme evangelical, is appalled and blames these inoffensive middle-class witches for infesting the whole community with evil ...even calling in the diocesan exorcist, Revd Merrily Watkins. An atmosphere of stifling menace develops - with the persecution of innocent people, false accusations, and the formation of a Christian vigilante group. As this cauldron of conflict threatens to boil over into serious violence, Merrily uses all the diplomacy she can muster. But, as the confrontation moves towards its climax at Candlemass, she is unaware of a personal threat against her from a deranged and violent man.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #177798 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

About the Author

Phil Rickman was born in Lancashire. He has won awards for his TV and radio journalism, and his highly acclaimed earlier novels Candlenight, Crybbe, The Man in the Moss, December and The Chalice are also available from Pan Books in paperback. The Wine of Angels introduced the Revd Merrily Watkins, whose frightening baptism as a diocesan exorcist was charted in Midwinter of the Spirit, followed by A Crown of Lights, his previous novel. He is married and lives on the Welsh border.

Customer Reviews

A perfect combination of murder mystery and ghost story
A young Wiccan couple, newcomers to the mysterious area of the English/Welsh border, who want to reconsecrate a ruined church on their land in the name of the old pagan gods.
A fundamentalist local minister who is profoundly provoked by this, all the more as this church is one of five dedicated to St Michael, warrior against dragons.
A country solicitor who cannot seem to let his dead wife go.
And Old Hindwell, the small border community, holds quite a few more dark and unsettling secrets. In the midst of all this and with conflicts growing on all sides, the Rev. Merrily Watkins, 'diocesan deliverance consultant', finds herself not only in a situation where her own beliefs and loyalty to the church are seriously tested, but also on late-night trash TV to represent the Church against militant pagans. When she finds out the truth about the shadowy secrets of Old Hindwell's spiritual legacy, she puts her own life at risk.

'A Crown of Lights', the third in the 'Merrily Watkins'-series, is a brilliant blend of crime novel, supernatural suspense and murder mystery. The characters and the setting are so utterly real and believable that you seem to see and hear and smell and feel as your read, you are take right into the eerie athmosphere. A book "you live as well as you read", so while you're at it, take a few days off work, unhook the phone and find a baby-sitter! (and when you've finished, look forward to the sequel...).

Just when you think you know your neighbors...
Rickman rocks; he delivers with yet another exciting thriller. In the third Merrily Watkins
installment,he really keeps you guessing. You feel
the tension build and you want more. Some of those quaint little towns hold nasty little secrets. By all means, do not miss. It's a ride
you won't soon forget!

All hail Merrily!
Of course Merrily isn't a good detective. She's a priest (and a damn good one at that.) I really enjoyed the latest Merrily Watkins book, I've now read them all and I've come to think of the recurring characters a little like old friends (kinda like Stephen Kings Castle Rock stories) and it was good to catch up with Merrily, Jane and 'Irene' again. I love pagan/christian aspect of this book and the way that Rickman takes issues that are bubbling away in real life and then finds a situation that exagerates them and turn it into a total believable thriller/ghost/mystery story, packed full of believable characters and this series just keeps getting better and better. It's also a joy to find a bloke that can actually create and write realistic female characters across an age range. As far as I'm concerned, Rickman's work just keeps getting better. I managed to read this book in a day and a half and I enjoyed every single word of it. Highly recommended.