I've read all of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins books, and this was.... a long way from being my favourite.

It this book Watkins, the Hereford Diocesan Deliverance Expert (read Exorcist) is called in to examine some strange goings on at a house, its land, a former castle and associated ghost village stands on said land. While there she runs into some local issues with some Non-Christian residents, and her daughter, Jane, has a poke round to see what her awareness of pre-Christian religions can tell her.

While this stand progresses, she is having difficulties with her Bishop (who's weirdly dubious about the whole idea of Deliverance), and has been cut off from the police by said bishop, because he's... a bit control. As a result we get a 2 strand book, Watkin's inquiries, and the police's parallel inquiries into 2 murders that happened locally.

The book isn't bad, it's just both Watkins and daughter seem a little whiney, which I don't find particularly attractive. Couple that with the fact that the book's conclusion isn't totally satisfactory (to my mind at least), and I'm left reminded of that joke where a driver asks for directions to get somewhere and the response was "Well if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here." If I were starting to read the Watkins books, I wouldn't start from here.