About the book

About The Fever of the World (Merrily Watkins Mysteries, 16)

A chilling and transfixing Merrily Watkins mystery. 'I called on darkness ... midnight darkness ...' At the end of the 18th century, the poet William Wordsworth rambled, in a strange visionary haze, from Salisbury Plain up into the Wye Valley. The epic walk changed his life. More than 200 years later, Oxford student David Vaynor followed the same secluded route and still can't explain what happened to him there. Now he's back, as a police detective investigating a suspicious death, and finds that, in this place of cliffs and chasms, it's far from easy to escape the past. Meanwhile, Merrily Watkins, diocesan exorcist for Hereford, is being warned that in-depth investigation is not part of her job – a job she may not be holding down for very long. She'll be risking her future to help Vaynor uncover the secrets carried through a haunted landscape by Britain's most revered river. For behind the scenic beauty are elements that, as Wordsworth wrote, 'promote ill purposes and flatter foul desires.' 'First rate crime with demons that go bump in the night.' Daily Mail 'Few writers blend the ancient and supernatural with the modern and criminal better than Rickman.' Guardian

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