"They'll follow you home. . . breathe down your phone at night. . . a prime target for every psychotic grinder of the dark satanic mills that ever sacrificed a chicken. . ." Diocesan Exorcist: a job viewed by the Church of England with such extreme suspicion that they changed the name. It's Deliverance Consultant now. Still, it seems, no job for a woman. But when the Bishop offers it to Merrily Watkins, parish priest and single mom, she's in no position to refuse. It starts badly for Merrily and gets no easier. As an early winter slices through the old city of Hereford, a body is found in the River Wye, an ancient church is desecrated, and signs of evil appear in the cathedral itself, where the tomb of a medieval saint lies in pieces.