Books : Remains of an Altar: A Merrily Watkins Mystery (Merrily Watkins Mysteries)

Rating: - And the sky is still there as well
It's been a constant in the Merrily Watkins series, unlike some of Mr Rickman's other excellent books, that the supernatural elements take place largely in the background of Merrily's life, and that the matters with which she deals directly turn out in most cases to be of primarily human agency. This is axiomatic in detective stories: there's no satisfaction if the murderer can't be brought, one way or another, to justice. Having said that, Mr Rickman has by now well established that the supernatural is a fundamental part of Merrily's world, such that he doesn't need to drag out the sheet with the eyeholes and the luminous tambourine every single time. Indeed, the longer the time between one confrontation with the numinous and the next, the more powerful it is when it does happen. In the meantime, like the sky, it's there whether he describes it or not.

Mr Rickman has produced, and continues to produce, a series which deftly avoids becoming formulaic either as whodunnit or as ghost-of-the-week chiller. Every book is different in tone and in substance. This is naturally going to upset people who simply want the same basic story every time with different names. For them, there are other authors.

And so to this book. In which the supernatural is no less present for the lack of what one might call the ooga booga element. M R James to the contrary, it doesn't always have to be an evil presence, and here one might call it spiritual rather than ghostly, a calm luminosity that pervades the landscape and throws the temporal, human evil into sharp relief. Much like the sky. To those who have rushed through it looking for the grisly spectre and been angry not to find one, I suggest you go back and read it again. There's a lot of interesting stuff you missed.

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Rating: - Worst Merrily Yet
This is the worst Merrily mystery I've read. All the previous ones have had solid supernatural / exorcism content which made them interesting. This one had zero. It seemed more like a badly plotted police novel using Elgar as the main theme. The modern elements were an intrusion and her daughter an irritation. Gomer is still Gomer thankfully.

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Rating: - Another classic enhanced by the reader
Well done, Mr Rickman. Yet another gripping tale.

This time I would also like to compliment the reader, Julie Maisey.

She clearly had a very intelligent and respectful understanding of Mr Rickman's work. By that, I mean, that she managed to scare me senseless whilst incorporating appropriate humour at every turn! I listen to a lot of audio books and often find that the reader just reads with little appreciation for the author's style. Not so with Ms Maisey. I am wondering if she has done any other recordings for other authors? If not, why not and if so, where can I find other examples of her work?

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Rating: - Time to give Merrily a holiday......
I am a huge fan of Phil Rickman and have enjoyed the Merrily Watkins series of books, but this was dull stuff. It seemed to to be a tale of a whole load of nothing to be honest, with Merrily traipsing back and forth in and out of people's houses - frankly if someone came calling at my house with her attitude I would have told her where to get off - and lamentably neglecting her child. Even the ending was a bit disappointing. I get the impression that the author is running out of ideas about what to do with Merrily, so how about giving her a rest. He wrote some superb stuff before she came along, so could she go off on a retreat for a while with Jane going backpacking round Thailand or somewhere and lets get back to the supernatural slow burner that Phil is best at?

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Rating: - A sort of contrived book.
I'm usually a bit of a fan of Phil Rickman and his crime fighting diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins, but I couldn't get into his most recent book, "The Remains of an Altar," because it all felt a little contrived.

In the book, a village and some Episcopalian parishioners think they're being haunted by the ghost of the (dead Catholic) composer Edward Elgar (which seems a little peculiar, I'd hope you'd agree) and Watkins goes off to investigate. At the same time drug dealers are being killed in the village (Watkins does some digging again) and Watkins' daughter (who's got some cranky ideas herself, but is usually the voice of reason about ghosts etc) has worked herself up into a tizzy and Mum isn't round to calm her down.

I'm not altogether sure why, but the story felt force. It read like the author knew what the reader was expecting of the characters and was forcing things to happen in the way the reader expected, rather letting them happen, which irritated me no end if I'm honest.