Product Description

The border town of Ludlow has it all: exquisite medieval streets, an imposing ruined castle, a parish church the size of a cathedral and a weight of history and legend. Wealthy people, famous people, have come to Ludlow to live. A sad teenage boy comes here to die ... dramatically, at sunset, in a fall from the ruins. Accident or suicide? Either way, no great mystery. Or is there?

Robbie Walsh was the nephew of former Detective Sergeant Andy Mumford, newly - and reluctantly - retired from West Mercia CID. When Mumford's ailing mother becomes convinced she's still seeing her dead grandson in the old town, he brings in Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum and Deliverance consultant to the Diocese of Hereford. Is it dementia, delusion or something even more disturbing?

Both scepticism and the dark underside of belief threaten Phil Rickman's engagingly open-minded heroine in this brilliantly structured, atmospheric thriller.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #168890 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 544 pages

Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian.
'A first class thriller with a difference'

Andrew Taylor, Spectator Books of the Year.
'Rickman's crime series is one of the best around.'

Margaret Cannon, Toronto Globe and Mail
'The setting is brilliant... a great job.'

Customer Reviews

super and natural
If I had known before I bought the first Merrily Watkins novel (The Wine of Angels) that Merrily is an exorcist, I probably would have saved my money. But I didn't know, and now I'm hooked.

The characters are fabulous - Merrily, the sometimes hapless vicar; Jane, the pagan daughter; Gomer, the archetypal local; Lol, the fragile folk-rock mystery. Any and all of these will fix your attention and concern, to say nothing of a wide array of secondary characters and ghosts. OK, the ghosts sound hard to take, but Rickman carefully constructs Merrily's vocation, making the line between spiritual work and work with spirits very faint indeed. The vicar's faith is remarkably practical and so are most of the problems she faces.

The plots grow out of the settings on the Welsh border, exquisitely detailed in all the books. In Smile of a Ghost, the town of Ludlow becomes another character, in some ways the principal victim. Of all the books, this one has the most subtly integrated element of the supernatural: you can take it or leave it.

If the exorcist plot makes you nervous, start with this book and see if your concerned affection for Merrily, Lol, Jane and others doesn't over-come your hesitation.

Anticipated more than Dan Brown!
I've read every one of Phil Rickman's / Will Kingdom's books and have found them utterly un-put-downable. I'd already started a Dan Brown when Mr Rickman's latest offering dropped through the letter box, but Dan was discarded in favour of Phil. As usual, there is the careful crafting of an intricate story, with a deceptively slow start. It's a case of drip, drip, drip, FLOOD! with this book. A lot happens very quickly in the last few chapters and it took a while to decipher all the connections. This was very good, but not quite Mr Rickman's best offering. It is still well worth buying & I've already recommended it to my friends. I'm disappointed that I've already finished the book and I look forward to the next offering.

The smile of a reader
In this the seventh of his Merrily Watkins novels, Phil Rickman once again proves that you really can't get too much of a good thing. While The Smile of a Ghost does not find the Rev. Merrily Watkins in such dire or dark supernatural peril she has contended with previously, the demons she must face are just as chilling -- the possible elimination of her very role as Deliverance Minister by modernizing forces in the Church as well as her own self-doubt. And this crisis couldn't have come at a worse time -- in the midst of a tragic trend of teen suicides, possibly influenced by a 12th century ghost and a very hauntingly real "ghost" of sorts from Merrily's Goth days of the more recent past.

In spite of this novel's thematic seriousness, Rickman manages to weave subtle strands of wit and humor throughout, and his astounding facility with character and dialogue only gets better with each book. Through his superb crafting of narrative perspective, the personalities of Rickman's characters' seem to hijack their way from chapter to chapter with an amazing fluidity that makes the book very hard to put down.

If you're a regular reader of Rickman's novels, this newest one will not disappoint. If you're new to the novels of Phil Rickman, you're in for a treat. Either way, The Smile of a Ghost will leave a reader smiling.