When record tycoon Max Goff travels to the village of Crybbe and decides to replace ancient stones that had fallen over, he unleashes a centuries-old evil.

The post of "Diocesan Exorcist" in the Church of England has changed to the preferred term "Delivery Ministry". It sounds less sinister, more caring, so why not a job for a woman? When offered the post the Rev. Merrily Watkins cannot easily refuse, having suffered uncanny experiences of her own.

When DI Bobby Maiden is revived in hospital after temporarily dying in a hit and run incident, his memories are of a cold, harsh place he never wants to revisit… memories that mean Maiden may be the only person who can reach The Green Man, a serial murderer the police don’t even known exists… a predator who returns to stone circles, burial mounds and ancient churches in the belief that he’s defending Britain’s sacred heritage. Originally published under the pseudonym Will Kingdom, The Cold Calling has been one of crime fiction’s best-kept secrets. [various quotes to insert here]

The Glastonbury Tor is the legendary resting place of the Holy Grail, a mysterious and haunting presence towering above the Somerset plain. Over the ancient leylines of Avalon, the power of the old legends is slow to fade, but so are the effects of violence, cruelty and death, and something else is stirring beneath the hill...

All talk is of the End-time... and the dead are rising. At the end of the sunless summer of 1560, black rumour shrouds the death of the one woman who stands between Lord Robert Dudley and marriage to the young Queen Elizabeth. Did Dudley's wife, Amy, die from an accidental fall in a deserted house, or was it murder? Even Dr John Dee, astrologer royal, adviser on the Hidden and one of Dudley's oldest friends, is uncertain.  Then a rash promise to the Queen sends him to his family's old home on the Welsh Border in pursuit of the Wigmore Shewstone, a crystal credited supernatural properties. With Dee goes Robert Dudley, considered the most hated man in England. They travel with a London judge sent to try a sinister Welsh brigand with a legacy dating back to the Battle of Brynglas. After the battle, many of the English bodies were, according to legend, obscenely mutilated. Now, on the same haunted hill, another dead man has been found, similarly slashed. Devious politics, small-town corruption, twisted religion and a brooding superstition leave John Dee isolated in the land of his father.

'You're looking at his inspiration. These are ones he wishes he'd done, the ones he wishes he'd got to first...' After half a century of decay, the village of Underhowle looked to be on the brink of a new prosperity. Now, instead, it seems destined for notoriety as the home of a psychotic serial killer. DI Francis Bliss, of Hereford CID, is convinced he knows where the bodies are buried. But Merrily Watkins, called in to conduct a controversial funeral, wonders if Bliss isn't blinkered by personal ambition. And are the Underhowle deaths really linked to perhaps the most sickening killings in British criminal history?Review“A monumentally ambitious fourth outing…” -- Kirkus Reviews“Chilling… fast–paced… provocative… even skeptics of the paranormal will shudder with fear.” -- Publishers Weekly, for The Cure of SoulsAbout the AuthorPhil Rickman, born in Lancashire, has won awards for his TV and radio journalism. After five acclaimed novels, he introduced this fascinating new series with The Wine of Angels. He is married and lives on the Welsh Border.