The Smile of a Ghost (A Merrily Watkins Mystery) - Softcover

The focus of this obsession is the haunted medieval town of Ludlow in Shropshire. (If you¹ve ever spent time there you'll understand.) After the third death, Merrily Watkins, deliverance consultant for Hereford, is drawn in.

I've often said that if this series ever threatens to become formulaic it will have to end. But, somehow, seductive ideas keep unveiling themselves and the concept stays fresh. I think this is also because, although the novels always involve solvable crimes, in authentic circumstances and real locations, they're usually viewed from an oblique perspective; for a priest, a OEresult' is not always the same result a cop would hope for. And the nature of mystery itself is different and more complex - with the constant faint reverberation of something else.

So The Smile of a Ghost is a mystery novel with as much of that deeper mystery as you and the characters are prepared to accept. It's more than a touch Gothic, sometimes eerie, and some of its twists surprised me, too. In a series I'm finding continually exciting, it... well, it might just be the best.