Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mum and Deliverance Consultant to
the Diocese of Hereford, heads for the Malvern Hills to investigate an
alleged paranormal dimension to a spate of road accidents in the sleepy
village of Wychehill.
Merrily is called in when two people are killed in a head-on crash that
is also linked to the revamped local pub which, it seems, has injected
the valley with a shattering, strobing surge of inner-city nightlife ...
and drugs. When a dealer is found savagely murdered below the great
earthen hillfort of Herefordshire Beacon, police ask - is it a ritual
killing, a gangland disposal or a cry of outrage?
As Merrily and the police follow separate paths towards the truth,
Merrily's teenage daughter, Jane, faces the consequences of her own
obsession with a possibly prehistoric site in their home village of
Ledwardine. Until, on a night of frenzied violence, in a place at the
centre of an ancient, universal mystery, the final, shocking connections
are made.