Midwinter of the Spirit

MIDWINTER OF THE SPIRIT
By Phil Rickman
Macmillan UK - 1999
ISBN: 0333751736 - HB
Horror / Modern Supernatural Crime
Hereford and environs, UK

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com
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Phil Rickman's books aren't easy to pigeonhole - they are crime novels, but you could also file them under supernatural. Think of M R James mixed with The Midsomer Murders (the wonderfully satirical books, not the TV series), add scenes from The Exorcist and you might have something approaching these impressive books. Following on from The Wine of Angels (essential to read this first) the Rev Merrily Watkins has now been ordained and is living with her teenage daughter Jane in the large draughty vicarage, complete with a ghost. On top of her usual work the trendy new Bishop, resplendent in his purple track suit, wants her to take over from the dying exorcist - or deliverance minister as he terms it. Sent on a course in the wilds of Wales she is soon dropped in at the deep end with the appalling Denzil Joy and here the reader is in for some chilling passages. Further troubles result as the pre-Christmas Boy Bishop ceremony is very close with a very disturbed teenager to take part, the tomb if St Thomas Cantilupe lies in pieces and something very strange indeed is going on atop ancient Dinedor Hill - and that isn't even including the dead bodies, desecrated church and suspicions of Satanism…

You have to hold onto this book tightly to keep all the story from bursting out of it, and at over four hundred pages you might be forgiven for thinking it is going to be wordy but it isn't. Perhaps the star of the show isn't even the story itself but the wonderful descriptions of Hereford and the surrounding countryside that are spot on (I love the place too) and delightfully wry comments about the modern church, teenagers and New Age culture. These books deserve to be bestsellers and are, the highest praise I ever give a book, HUGELY ENJOYABLE. What are you waiting for?