Phil Rickman Books in Order

During the COVID era, the suspicious death of an estate agent on the River Wye draws detective David Vaynor and Merrily into Wordsworth country, where lingering druidic lore, riverside ghosts and an old grudge surface beneath the pressures of a modern pandemic.

After Aidan Lloyd’s fog-shrouded funeral, a nocturnal ritual suggests the dead farmer will not rest. As ice and snow grip the border country, Merrily and Jane confront rural feuds, sinister folk customs and organised crime converging on a symbol-laden medieval church.

Storms uproot a tree in Hereford, exposing centuries-old bones that promptly vanish, while a new bishop wants to sideline exorcism. In the border hills, Merrily investigates a supposedly haunted twelfth-century house and uncovers a cult obsessed with dodging death itself.

Zoe and Jonathan’s stark modern house in Hereford was cheap because a previous owner died there. When Zoe insists Susan Lulham’s furious presence still stalks the white walls, Merrily must decide whether she’s dealing with grief, deceit or a ghost that will not move on.

Reality TV producer Leo Defford leases eerie Knap Hall to film a live haunting show, locking celebrities inside for a week. Researcher Grayle Underhill digs into the house’s tragic past and discovers that something far more dangerous than ratings is running the experiment.

A body found beneath a waterfall near Hay-on-Wye looks like suicide until disturbing evidence at the dead man’s home sends DI Frannie Bliss to Merrily. Among booksellers, eccentrics and old independence stunts, she uncovers a hidden history of ritual magic and murder.

In 1560, with rumours swirling about Robert Dudley’s dead wife, John Dee seeks a perfect crystal that might open the hidden world. Sent to the Welsh borders with Dudley and a travelling judge, he encounters outlaw legends, border grudges and visions he may not be able to trust.

Ex–SAS soldier turned chaplain Syd Spicer is cracking under the strain of a case he cannot share with Merrily. When a wealthy landowner is hacked to death on his farm, border communities, military secrets and echoes of pagan warrior cults collide around her.

Newly crowned Elizabeth I sends her astrologer John Dee to Glastonbury to recover the supposed bones of King Arthur and shore up her throne. Among ruined abbey stones, rival factions and sudden deaths, Dee uncovers a plot that entwines royal survival with dangerous magic.

This companion to the Merrily Watkins novels tours the real churches, villages and landscapes behind the series, blending Rickman’s essays with John Mason’s photographs to explore border folklore, curious histories and how particular places shaped Merrily’s fictional cases.

Winter floods cut Ledwardine off as an aggressively atheist writer is hidden nearby for his own safety and archaeologists unearth standing stones in a contested meadow. With tempers and water levels rising, Merrily confronts fanaticism, fear and a killer inside the cordon.

Builders refuse to work on a medieval Master House newly acquired by the royal estate, claiming the place does not want to be restored. Merrily traces its ties to a Templar church, a bitter family feud and a haunting that brushes uncomfortably close to power.

When Rosa hauls a rusted sword from Glastonbury’s riverbank, rumours claim Excalibur has returned. As rival groups vie to control the blade and the legends around it, Marco and Rosa are forced to choose sides in a dangerous struggle over belief and power.

Strange car accidents near the Malvern Hills are blamed on a haunted stretch of road linked to composer Edward Elgar. Called in to investigate, Merrily follows clues through music, local rivalries and her daughter Jane’s obsession with an ancient hilltop site.

Dumped with his hippy grandparents in Glastonbury for the summer, thirteen-year-old Marco learns to dowse with a pendulum and stumbles into a fight between developers and those trying to protect the town’s sacred landscape, discovering he’s more connected to the place than he thought.

After a teenager falls from Ludlow Castle’s walls, his grandmother insists she still sees him walking with a medieval lady. Merrily must pick through bullying, ghost tours and a reclusive rock star’s patronage to learn whether the dead boy jumped, fell or was pushed.

A crumbling country house hotel trades on a local legend that may lie behind The Hound of the Baskervilles. While Merrily sees disturbing echoes of a child-killer, her daughter Jane’s new job there draws them both into snowbound danger and a very modern haunting.

Underhowle looks ready for a new lease of life, until rumours of a serial killer turn the village into a true-crime sideshow. DI Frannie Bliss thinks he knows where the bodies are buried; Merrily suspects ambition, myth and old evil are blurring together.

A converted hopkiln in Herefordshire was once the scene of a savage murder. When its new owners complain of a haunting and a local mother insists her daughter is possessed, Merrily is sent in, uncovering trickery, corruption and a village history warped by violence.

World-famous medium Seffi Callard has abandoned the spotlight and barricaded herself in her father’s Cotswold home, convinced something is stalking her from both sides of the grave. Grayle Underhill and DI Bobby Maiden investigate, uncovering fraud, gangsters and a haunting that may be genuine.

When a pagan couple buys a deconsecrated borderland church, an outraged evangelical minister whips up fears of a modern witch cult. Merrily must calm a community on the brink of a witch-hunt while untangling older legends and a grief that has turned dangerous.

Reluctantly appointed diocesan exorcist, Merrily begins her deliverance training just as a body turns up in the River Wye, a church is desecrated and sinister signs appear in Hereford Cathedral, pulling her into a case that tests faith, family and nerve.

Newly arrived vicar Merrily Watkins and her teenage daughter Jane move to the picture-postcard village of Ledwardine, only to find a haunted vicarage, a controversial play about a witchcraft trial and orchard rituals that stir up a tradition of murder.

Returning to Glastonbury with New Age friends, Diane Ffitch finds the town split over a new motorway that threatens its sacred landscape. As hostility mounts and deaths follow, rumours grow of an anti-Grail hidden beneath the Tor, twisting faith and ambition together.

After a corrupt colleague arranges a hit-and-run, DI Bobby Maiden dies briefly and comes back with chilling memories of a place he never wants to see again. Hidden in a borderland castle with writer Marcus Bacton, he joins Grayle Underhill and shamanic Cindy Mars-Lewis to hunt a killer tied to ancient sacred sites.

A perfectly preserved bog body is lifted from the peat near the Pennine village of Bridelow, thrilling archaeologists but terrifying locals who see it as a bad omen. As Samhain approaches, outsiders and zealots challenge an older, gentler faith and the whole community tilts toward catastrophe.

In 1980, the rock band Philosopher’s Stone records an album in a ruined Welsh abbey to tap its psychic energy; the night ends in blood and disaster. Years later, when the “black album” is finally released, the surviving musicians are drawn back to confront the forces they stirred up.

Record tycoon Max Goff plans to turn the decaying border town of Crybbe into a New Age attraction by reinstating its ancient standing stones. Radio reporter Fay Morrison discovers that ending the nightly curfew bell may also free something dark that the village has long kept contained.

In a remote West Wales village, schoolteacher Bethan despises the old superstitions until English couple Giles and Claire Freeman move in, eager to embrace local ways. As corpse candles, phantom funerals and buried pagan loyalties surface, the newcomers learn the price of belonging can be deadly.