The Fever of the World

'Brilliantly eerie' PETER JAMES



'Engrossing and beautifully dark . . . a cracking good read' JO BRAND



'A most original sleuth' THE TIMES





Welcome to the River Wye: a place of poetry, historic obsession... and occult murder.





The curious death of an estate agent is being investigated by detective David Vaynor who, before joining the police, studied the famous 18th century poet William Wordsworth. As Vaynor is discovering, the dark paganism that changed Wordsworth's life still lingers on the banks of the River Wye today - and there are some killings even the police can't approach...





Enter Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum, and diocesan exorcist for Hereford. Called away from her local hauntings, Merrily finds herself confronting the riverside ghosts who, as Wordsworth puts it, 'promote ill purposes and flatter foul desires'. In the ancient heart of the Wye Valley, a buried grudge is about to come to light.



*Book 16 in the Merrily Watkins series - now a critically acclaimed ITV drama starring Anna Maxwell-Martin!*





More praise for Phil Rickman





'Cleverly illuminates the darkest corners of our imagination' John Connolly





'The layers, the characters, the humour, the spookiness - perfect' Elly Griffiths





'First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night' Daily Mail





'No one writes better of the shadow-frontier between the supernatural and the real world' Bernard Cornwell



Phil Rickman lives on the Welsh border where he writes and presents the book programme Phil the Shelf on BBC Radio Wales. He is the hugely popular author of the Merrily Watkins series and the John Dee papers.



No one writes better of the shadow-frontier between the supernatural and the real world.



Ancient history, violent deaths, feuds, intrigues and murder. A most original sleuth.



Phil Rickman is one of my all-time favourites. I love everything he's done.



Tight with atmosphere, thick with latent violence... Brilliantly eerie.



Compassionate, original and sharply contemporary, Rickman's crime series is one of the best around.



Complex, absorbing, fascinating...



Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman.



Supremely skillful at teasing out the menace that lies behind English folk customsand legends and weaving them into a compelling contemporary narrative



The layers, the characters, the humour, the spookiness - perfect.



First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night.



Classic mysteries... [which] cleverly illuminate the darkest corners of our imaginations.



Engrossing and beautifully dark... a cracking good read ensues.