The Smile of a Ghost (Merrily Watkins Series #7)

by Phil Rickman

Overview

Merrily is called to investigate a possible ghost sighting in her seventh fascinating adventure

In the affluent, historic town of Ludlow, a teenage boy dies in a fall from the castle ruins. Accident or suicide? No great mystery—so why does the boy's uncle, retired detective Andy Mumford, turn to diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins? More people will die before Merrily, her own future uncertain, uncovers a dangerous obsession with suicide, death, and the afterlife hidden within these shadowed medieval streets.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857890153
Publisher:	Atlantic Books
Publication date:	04/01/2012
Series:	Merrily Watkins Series , #7
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Phil Rickman is the author of the Merrily Watkins Mystery series, which includes The Remains of an Altar, The Fabric of Sin, and To Dream of the Dead.

Editorial Reviews

Merrily Watkins faces her most challenging case yet in British author Rickman's unsettling seventh mystery to feature the Anglican priest and deliverance consultant to the diocese of Hereford (after 2004's The Prayer of the Night Shepherd). When the 14-year-old nephew of newly retired Det. Sgt. Andy Mumford falls from the ruined castle in the medieval town of Ludlow, the official inquest rules the boy's death a suicide. Suspecting foul play, Mumford seeks Merrily's aid. Two more deaths shatter the village, and Mumford, not yet at peace with his retirement, begins to investigate on his own. Rickman vividly depicts Ludlow's narrow streets and the sinister castle, but it's his masterly handling of the occult elements and their impact on the psychology of his sensitive and memorable characters that will keep readers mesmerized from start to finish. Agent, Andrew Hewson (U.K.). (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Rap twice if you believe in ghosts. Saddled with Sian Callaghan-Clarke and Nigel Saltash, an ambitious cleric and a publicity-hound psychiatrist recently appointed advisors to her office, Anglican vicar Merrily Watkins is wary of helping out retired copper Andy Mumford, who comes to her in despair when his nephew Robbie plunges from a tower of Ludlow Castle and Robbie's grandmother insists she sees her grandson's ghost. When another youngster catapults from the castle and granny winds up face down in the river, Merrily and Mumford must decide whether young Robbie committed suicide to unite with his 12th-century love Marian de La Bruyere or was murdered. Mumford focuses on a gang of Robbie's druggie tormentors while Merrily and her musician lover Lol watch eccentric Belladonna, a rock star turned town benefactor, who often wanders the Ludlow cobblestones in the company of Robbie and Jonathan Scole, founder of the local Ghost Walk. The cryptic Belladonna is the bane of fusty mayor George Lackland, whose son wants to marry Belladonna's stepdaughter. A paean to Welsh border history and its spirits that will undoubtedly put Ludlow Castle on many to-see lists. Nor is Rickman (The Prayer of the Night Shepherd, 2004, etc.) any slouch when it comes to contemporary church politics, Internet chat rooms or village rumor mills.

Kirkus Reviews

A thinking reader’s Elizabeth George” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher