An unnatural body, a town steeped in black magic, and maddening isolationhas paranormal advisor Merrily Watkins finally met her match?A man''s body is found below a waterfall. It looks like suicide or an accidental drowninguntil DI Frannie Bliss enters the dead man''s home. What he finds there sends him to Merrily Watkins, the Diocese of Hereford''s official advisor on the paranormal. It''s been nearly 40 years since Hay was declared an independent state by its self-styled kinga development seen at the time as a joke, a publicity scam. But behind this pastiche a dark design was taking shape, creating a hidden history of murder and ritual-magic, the relics of which are only now becoming horribly visible. It''s a situation that will take Merrily Watkinsalone for the first time in yearsto the edge of madness.