PHIL RICKMAN is the best writer of creepy chiller type fiction being published today in my opinion. One of his many specialities is his use of dialogue - it is so well done, you can actually seem to hear the characters speaking.

I have read ALL of his books, icluding those written under the name of WILL KINGDOM and they are all great (with the exception of one of the newer one - THE BONES OF AVALON - about Dr. John Dee, Astrologer to Elizabeth 1st) - this is NOT really his forte, sorry to say.

TO DREAM OF THE DEAD is in the Merrily Watkins series and is really great. For those who do not know, Merrily Watkins is the lady Vicar of Ledwardine, a fictional village set near to Hereford. She was also 'press-ganged' into being the Diocesan Exorcist - Deliverance Specialist in today speak! (much against her better judgement for most of the time). She has a teenage daughter, Jane, who is a perceptive, intelligent and single-minded child and a friend, Gomer Parry, the local retired Plant Hire man.

This may not seem to be a likely scenario, but, believe me it is - the stories are fantastic, having in them a mystical, creepy sort of horror which is difficult to convey.

This book deals with the flooding of said village by the normally quiescent little river and all the incidents flowing (good simile, that?) from this along with a creepy archaelogist, et al.

It IS an excellent book. Buy it, I'm sure you will love it and all of his others, except the one mentioned above, of course.

Other of his include THE MAN IN THE MOSS & CRYBBE - excellent!!