Cette série suit Merrily Watkins, une prêtresse anglicane et mère célibataire, naviguant à travers d'énigmatiques mystères de meurtres près de la frontière galloise. Se déroulant dans la région atmosphérique du Herefordshire du Nord-Est, en Angleterre, chaque épisode se penche sur des affaires criminelles complexes. Le récit tisse habilement un travail d'enquête passionnant avec les luttes personnelles et les réflexions spirituelles de Merrily. Il offre un mélange convaincant de mystère, d'étude de personnage et de commentaire social pour les lecteurs avertis.
The Revd Merrily Watkins had never wanted a picture-postcard parish - or a huge and haunted vicarage. Nor had she particularly wanted to walk straight into a local dispute over a controversial play about a strange seventeeth-century clergyman accused of witchcraft ... a story that certain old-established families would rather remained obscure. But this is Ledwardine, steeped in cider and secrets. A paradise of cobbled streets and timber-framed houses. And also - as Merrily and her teenage daughter Jane discover - a village where horrific murder is a tradition that spans centuries.
The second instalment in the Merrily Watkins series: Merrily's new role as
Diocesan Exorcist is not plain sailing, as signs of evil appear around the old
city of Hereford...
When a derelict country church is bought by a pagan couple, the local evangelical minister reacts with fury. A modern witch hunt begins, and Merrily Watkins is expected to keep a lid on the cauldron. Meanwhile, there is the problem of the man who won’t be parted from his dead wife, the ancient mystery of the five local churches dedicated to St. Michael, and a killer with an old tradition to guard.
The fourth instalment in the Merrily Watkins series: A school girl possessed
by evil spirits and a savage murder; Merrily is once again drawn into the
deadly tangle of deceit and mystery in rural Herefordshire...
The fifth instalment in the Merrily Watkins series: Merrily must unearth the
mysteries of the decaying village of Underhowle, and tackle a particularly
stubborn Detective Inspector who strays off course...
The sixth instalment in the Merrily Watkins series: Hereford's Diocesan
Exorcist must encounter a legacy of evil within the crumbling walls of an old
hotel along with memories of murder...
The seventh instalment in the Merrily Watkins series: The Parish Priest must
solve the mystery of a young boy's deathly fall from the Ludlow Castle ruins,
and discovers a hidden obsession with the afterlife amongst the ancient
streets...
In high summer, darkness descends on Elgar's England. Investigating a series
of road accidents in the Malvern Hills, Merrily Watkins stumbles into a barbed
tangle of alienation, murder... and a mystical obsession with the landscape.
NOW A MAJOR ITV DRAMA The Master House, close to the Welsh border, is medieval and slowly falling into ruins. Now the house and its surrounding land have been sold to the Duchy of Cornwall. But the Duchy's plans to renovate the house and its outbuildings are frustrated when the specialist builder refuses to work there. 'This is a place,' he tells the Prince's land-steward, 'that doesn't want to be restored.' Directed by the Bishop of Hereford to investigate, deliverance consultant Merrily Watkins discovers ancient connections between the house and the nearby church, built by the Knights Templar whose shadow still envelopes isolated Garway Hill and its scattered communities. Why did all the local inns have astrological names? What deep history lies behind the vicious feud between two local families? And what happened here to intimidate even the great Edwardian ghost-story writer M R James? When Merrily learns that she - and even her daughter, Jane - are under surveillance by the security services, she's ready to quit. But a sudden death changes everything, and she returns to Garway to uncover fibres of fear and hatred stitched into history and now insidiously twisted in the corridors - and the cloisters - of power.
With the flood water washing up Church Lane towards the vicarage and the shop
running out of cigarettes it looks like a cold and complex Christmas for
Merrily Watkins in an ancient community forced to untangle its own history
against the swirling uncertainty of the future.
The eleventh instalment in the Merrily Watkins series: With the framework of
her own world beginning to crack, Merrily must venture into areas of mystery
and menace; the secrets of the border's pagan past...
When a man's body is discovered below a waterfall in the picturesque town of Hay-on-Wye, his death appears to be "unnatural" in every sense and Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mother, and exorcist, is drafted in to investigate.
When autumn storms blast Hereford, centuries-old human bones are found among the roots of a tree blown down on the city's Castle Green. But why have they been stolen? At the nearby Cathedral, another storm is building around a modernizing bishop who believes that if the Church is to survive it must phase out irrelevant archaic practices. Not good news for Merrily Watkins, consultant on the paranormal or, as it used to be known, diocesan exorcist. Especially as she's now presented with the job at its most medieval. In the moody countryside on the edge of Wales, a rambling 12th-century house is thought to be haunted. Although its new owners don't believe in ghosts, they do believe in spiritual darkness and the need for an exorcism. But their approach to Merrily is oblique and guarded. No one can be told—least of all, the new bishop. Merrily's discovery of the house's links with the medieval legend of a man who resisted mortality threatens to expose the hidden history of a more modern cult and its trail of insidious abuse—a trail that may not be closed.
When Aidan Lloyd's bleak funeral is followed by a nocturnal ritual in the fog, it becomes all too clear that Aidan, son of a wealthy farmer, will not be resting in peace. Aidan's hidden history has reignited an old feud, and a rural tradition begins to display its sinister side. It's already a fraught time for Merrily Watkins, her future threatened by a bishop committed to restricting her role as diocesan exorcist for Hereford. Suddenly there are events she can't talk about as she and her daughter Jane find themselves potentially on the wrong side of the law.
The latest eerie supernatural thriller featuring the unforgettable Merrily
Watkins - parish priest, single mother and exorcist. Perfect for fans of John
Connolly, Ruth Rendell and Midsomer Murders.
A new husband and a new house. Just as well, because Zoe doesn't like old. Back in the 1960s, this house was built to look ultra-modern, with lots of glass and sharp angles. And it was going cheap, perhaps because of the self-inflicted death of a previous owner - notoriously bloody and prolonged. But Zoe didn't know that. And if her husband Jonathan knew, he kept very quiet. How is Merrily Watkins, diocesan exorcist for Hereford, to know what's behind Zoe's claim that the late Susan Lulham is still in residence? Sceptical neighbours seem unlikely to help, and fresh blood will decorate the pristine white walls of the New House before its secret history begins, at last, to leak out.
