The Magus of Hay (Merrily Watkins Series, 12) - Tapa dura

First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night * Daily Mail on the Merrily Watkins series * Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman * Guardian on the Merrily Watkins series * Ancient history, violent deaths, feuds, intrigues and murder. A most original sleuth * The Times on the Merrily Watkins series * Compassionate, original and sharply contemporary, Rickman's crime series is one of the best around * Spectator on the Merrily Watkins series * Hell, it's good * Crime Review *

A Merrily Watkins mystery... A man's body is found below a waterfall. It looks like suicide or an accidental drowning - until DI Frannie Bliss enters the dead man's home. What he finds there has him consulting Merrily Watkins, the Diocese of Hereford's official advisor on the paranormal. It's nearly forty years since the town of Hay-on-Wye was declared an independent state by its self-styled king. A development seen at the time as a joke. But the pastiche had a serious side. And behind it, unknown to most of the townsfolk, lay a darker design, a hidden history of murder and ritual magic, the relics of which are only now becoming visible. It's a situation that will take Merrily Watkins - on her own for the first time in years and facing public humiliation over a separate case - to the edge of madness.