Search Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »
My library | Help | Advanced Book Search | Web History | Sign in

Books

Remains of an Altar:

A Merrily Watkins Mystery
Front Cover
32 Reviews
Quercus, Sep 6, 2007 - Fiction - 512 pages
Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, heads for the Malvern Hills to investigate an alleged paranormal dimension to a spate of road accidents in the sleepy village of Wychehill.
Merrily is called in when two people are killed in a head-on crash that is also linked to the revamped local pub which, it seems, has injected the valley with a shattering, strobing surge of inner-city nightlife ... and drugs. When a dealer is found savagely murdered below the great earthen hillfort of Herefordshire Beacon, police ask: is it a ritual killing, a gangland disposal or a cry of outrage?
As Merrily and the police follow separate paths towards the truth, Merrily's teenage daughter, Jane, faces the consequences of her own obsession with a possibly prehistoric site in their home village of Ledwardine. Until, on a night of frenzied violence, in a place at the centre of an ancient, universal mystery, the final, shocking connections are made.
  

What people are saying - Write a review

User ratings

5 stars
3
4 stars
14
3 stars
9
2 stars
2
1 star
1

Excellent writing, and description of scenery as usual. - Goodreads
That's good writing... - Goodreads
Some of the smartest writing around... - Goodreads
This personally has helped me in my own writing. - Goodreads

Review: The Remains of an Altar (Merrily Watkins #8)

User Review  - Debbie Mcgowan - Goodreads

Excellent yet again. Just hope Rickman ups his writing speed before I catch him up, only three books to read until I'm up to date!!! :- Read full review

Review: The Remains of an Altar (Merrily Watkins #8)

User Review  - Astrid - Goodreads

Really enjoyed this Merrily Watkins mystery. It made me go through my cd's to pull out the one Elgar cd I own and I'm listening to it as I write it. On to #9. Read full review

All 32 reviews »

Related books

Selected pages

Contents

PART ONE
1On the Bald Hill
2Uncle Alfie
3For the Views
4A Very Public Ghost
5Between the Lines
6The Sunset Chair
7The Dead of Ledwardine
33A Result Anyway
34Dont Do Sorry
35Three Choirs
36The Dream
37Spiritual Malnutrition
38Local Democracy
39Temple of Sound
40Netherworld

8Dead to the World
9Mutated
10Firewall
11Idyll Chipped
12Nearness
13Another Sphere of Existence
14A Dim and Bleary Light
15Only Me
16Animation
17Isolated
18What Remains of Reason
19Unload It
20Accidents Happens
21Playing Purgatory
22Power of Place
PART TWO
23Freelancing
24Lord of Dread
25Village Idiot
26Weight of the Ancestors
27BuggerAll
28Curse Came Down
29Stoolie
30In Their Proper Place
PART THREE
31On the Line
32A Polka for the Loonies
41Protect the Memory
42All the Time in the Worlds
43The One Per Cent
PART FOUR
44The PlantHire Code
45Of Great Renown
46Black Vapour Trails
47A Perfect Universe
48Neighbours
49The Lesson
50In the Country After Dark
51The Blade
52Remembering the Hurt
53Unseeingness
54Snaps Batons
55Build a Cathedral
56Tennis Courts
57Difficult Times in Old England
58Mr Phoebus and the Whiteleafed Oak
59LifeForce
60Into the Pit
61Trying to be a Priest
62Seventeen
63A List
64Helium
Credits Plus
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2007)

Phil Rickman lives on the Welsh border where he writes and presents the book programme Phil the Shelf on BBC Radio Wales. He is the author of seven previous Merrily Watkins' Mysteries, introducing the Reverend in The Wine of Angels, and charting her career as the diocesan exorcist with Midwinter of the Spirit, A Crown of Lights, The Cure of Souls, The Lamp of the Wicked, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd and The Smile of a Ghost.

Bibliographic information