Phil Rickman

When autumn storms blast Hereford, centuries-old human bones are found amongst the roots of a tree blown down on the city's Castle Green. But why have they been stolen? At the nearby Cathedral, another storm is building around a new, modernising bishop who believes that if the Church is to survive, it must phase out irrelevant archaic practices. Not good...

The castle was moonlight-vast, all its ages fused together by the shadows, chimney stacks like the backs of hands turned black. Hay-on-Wye: an eccentric medieval town known for its dozens of second-hand bookshops and for having its own king. Now in the grip of recession, Hay is fighting for its future. Not the best time to open a bookshop, but...

There were certain phrases you could feel, like fingers up your spine. Hattie Chancery's room. The possessive. Present tense. Oh God. At Stanner Hall, a Victorian mansion-turned-hotel, Ben Foley hosts murder-mystery weekends and strives to prove that his hotel is the house on which Arthur Conan Doyle based his immortal Baskerville Hall. As the days shorten and the weather worsens,...