Ludlow is a lovely town: winding medieval streets, an imposing castle ruin, a magnifi- cent parish church steeped in history and legend. The wealthy and the famous come here to live. And a teenage boy comes here to die--dramatically, at sunset, in a fall from the ruins. Accident or suicide? Either way, no great mystery. Or is there? Robbie Walsh was the nephew of former Detective Sergeant Andy Mumford, newly--and reluctantly--retired. When Mumford's ailing mother becomes convinced that she's still seeing her dead grandson in the old town, he renews his links with Merrily Watkins, parish priest and Deliverance consultant to the Diocese of Hereford. When, after two more deaths, Merrily is drawn towards the peculiar lifestyle of a one-time Goth-rock star, she is compelled, for the first time, to work undercover. In this, the seventh Merrily Watkins mystery, both skepticism and the dark underside of belief threaten Phil Rickman's engagingly opened-minded heroine.