The Prayer of the Night Shepherd: Merrily Watkins Series, Book 6 (Merrily Watkins 6) [Kindle Edition]

Stories of phantom black dogs abound in Britain. Almost every county has its own variant, from the Black Shuck of East Anglia to the Bogey Beast of Yorkshire. In this novel, the ghost hound of Herefordshire on the Welsh border foreshadows a death in the Vaughan family.

This family is also cursed with an ancestor named Black Vaughan, who is believed by the author to be the basis for the hellish Hugo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Hound of the Baskervilles." Did Sir Arthur really take his tale of the phosphorescent Hound from the Welsh Border rather than foggy Dartmoor? Rickman's theory on the origins of 'The Hound' appeared in the most recent issue of the magazine "Sherlock."

Evidently this author discovered that Herefordshire had a population of medieval Baskervilles, not to mention Mortimers and Stapletons, and many local people still refuse to walk near Black Vaughan's home of Hergest Croft at night for fear of seeing his ghost and that of his hound.

Sherlock Holmes fans might want to read this book just to ferret out Rickman's research on Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous dog story.

Since "The Prayer of the Night Shepherd" is also a Merrily Watkins procedural, many familiar characters appear from Rickman's previous novels. Merrily, Vicar of Ledwardine and Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford reluctantly takes on a new role as a healer of physical ailments. Gomer Parry, the manic digger-for-hire who is one of my favorite Rickman creations, has a minor walk-on. Merrily's daughter Jane is as usual, in the thick of the supernatural goings-on at Stanner Hall. Poor Lol, the musician is still trying to spend quality time with Merrily, but is thwarted by a snowstorm, a couple of attempted murders, an attempted suicide, and a real murder--not to mention a phantom hound.

This book is an unsettling mix of murder mystery, indigestible lumps of Rickman's 'Hound' research, and swirls of supernatural vapor. What really happened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when or if he visited Herefordshire? What did Jane really experience in the tower room under the witch's hat at Stanner Hall? What did the medium from the White Company really see?

I was left scratching my head over this latest installment of Merrily Watkins's venture into the dim, dangerous netherworld of Anglican theology.

This sixth in Rickman's Merrily Watkins series picks up after several of the more dramatic volumes in the series and finds the diocesian exorcist and minister of Ledwardine confronting a thorny problem. Merrily has started having informal evensong services and unexpectedly, one of the attendees is cured of a fatal tumor. Merrily isn't ready to accept this sudden sign of the Lord's blessing at face value, but her congregation does. Now she must deal with her and the church's mixed attitude toward healing. Which, she discovers, many think goes hand in hand with exorcism.

The other piece of good/bad news is that Jane, Merrily's daughter and chief critic, has managed to get a weekend job as waitress and general assistant at a struggling new inn that is trying to use its tenuous connection to Arthur Conan Doyle and the hound of the Baskervilles to build a clientele. All of this on the forbidding border with Wales where, as we are often reminded, long memories and getting even is a way of life. The legends of the area include a number of characters almost as grim as their remaining heirs. Throw in mysterious black dogs and bulls, a fair amount of inherited insanity, séances, and film crews and you have the perfect environment for trouble. As usual, Jane's youthful enthusiasm leads her into the worst of the fray.

Merrily must cope with healing, spiritism, a terminally determined daughter and her blossoming relationship with Lol. Compelled by her nature she is soon in the thick of things, trying to deal with phenomena that are unresponsive to either intellect or faith. The result is a complex story that is part history, part supernatural, and part psychological thriller. Rickman is one of the few writers who seem to be able to bring the supernatural into a mystery story without destroying the overall effect.

For all the darkness of the themes, The Prayer of the Night Shepherd is much lighter in tone than the past few volumes. Not for lack of horrible events but because Jane's self confidence and Lol's gentle wisdom balance Merrily's introspectiveness perfectly. The inner story that develops around them keeps some of the dark insanity around them at bay. I found myself enjoying the break, as well as all the bits of Sherlockiana and bleak border history. For all that this is volume 7, it stands pretty well on its own. I've managed to read this series completely out of order and don't feel I missed anything but an occasional bit of context.

Phil Rickman is one of my favorite authors. His West Country mysteries, always with a generous sprinkle of English history, Celtic mysticism and superstition, never fail to captivate. Prayer is no exception. The Reverend Merrily Watkins is a winningly human sort of priest, with a neo-pagan daughter and a former rock star boyfriend. Supporting characters are equally well-drawn. While Rickman's plot this time round is quite complex, he moves it along at a fast pace, dropping clues to the reader if the reader's sharp enough to catch them. The surprises don't end till the very last page. If you think evil is an abstract concept, read one of Rickman's books.