"When unemployed TV producer Ben Foley discovers that running murder-mystery weekends at Stanner Hall, an old Herefordshire mansion turned hotel he's purchased, isn't as profitable as he anticipated, he determines to prove his theory that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind a tale from the Welsh border region, not Devon, for the background to The Hound of the Baskervilles. In British author Rickman's chilling fifth entry in his occult crime series (The Lamp of the Wicked, etc.) featuring Merrily Watkins, the single mom, Anglican priest and exorcist gets involved in sinister doings rooted in actual legend, as the author explains in his afterword. Merrily's independent 17-year-old daughter, Jane, takes a job with the hotel and enthusiastically supports Foley's plans, until the local legend of a black dog that foreshadows death becomes all too real. A pre-Christmas snowstorm provides a shivering backdrop to events at Stanner Hall that lead Merrily, boyfriend Lol Robinson and Jane into a night none of them will forget. Human greed and evil, plus the healing properties of faith, combine to create a fascinating and fast-paced read. Sherlock Holmes fans, especially members of the Baker Street Irregulars, will be intrigued by an organization called 'The Baker Street League.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

At Stanner Hall, a Victorian mansion-turned-hotel, Ben Foley, unemployed TV producer, hosts unprofitable murder-mystery weekends and nurtures his dream--to prove that Stanner Hall is the house on which Arthur Conan Doyle based his immortal Baskerville Hall. It's a local tradition that the origins of "The Hounds of the Baskerbvilles lie not in Dartmoor, but in the Herfordshire legend of a black dog foreshadowing death. Young Jane Watkins, whose first weekend job is at the hotel, is intrigued. But Jane's mother, the Reverend Merrily Watkins, Deliverance Consultant to the Diocese of Hereford, is unhappy when she learns how Ben Foley proposes to prove his theory. As the days shorten and the weather worsens, Foley's dabbling uncovers more than he can handle. For the history of Stanner Hall is linked not only to the Victorian fascination with spiritualism and the legacy of a terrifying medieval exorcism--but with a chain of death that is far from fictional.