LOCAL author Phil Rickman has left Herefordshire for the Cotswolds, but it's a change of location for his new novel, not a permanent move.

The creator of Merrily Watkins, deliverance expert for the diocese of Herefordshire, has set his new, non-Merrily, novel, Night after Night, in a historic house in Gloucestershire, declaring that, "Herefordshire is Merrily's, but I didn't want to go too far away. All my stuff depends on location and I need to be able to go back and check things."

Explaining the genesis of Night after Night, Phil says that his publishers are always keen for him to do something different and he himself, having written a dozen Merrily Watkins books, is anxious for her not 'to get stale'.

"They suggested a ghost story, but I think it's impossible to sustain one for the length of a novel," he says, "so then we thought about a haunted house mystery, but there are only so many permutations of the theme that you can do. There's the Amityville-style where there's a sense of menace, then the dog dies - the dog always goes first - and the teenage daughter appears possessed," he says. "I felt weary at the thought of it, and wondered what I could do that would be different. And then the idea came to me - what if you were to do Celebrity Big Brother in a haunted house? They had to be relatively educated - the producer intially has two prototypes: Uri Geller and Richard Dawkins. He knows he won't get them, so looks for people who will agree with each of those viewpoints. Half would be believers and half would be total sceptics.

"At the end of the week, the conclusion isn't which of them has managed to survive by being the most popular, but which of them has managed to persuade viewers there is such a thing as ghosts."

Before he could start writing, Phil recognised, with the help of a CBB producer he was introduced to, that there were a number of practical problems he needed to address. Not least of these was the fact that the Channel 5 show is filmed by putting the celebrities into a space surrounded by a circular walkway in which cameramen can ensure that everything is caught on film, but putting his subjects into a Tudor manor house didn't afford such easy access.

His research also revealed that residents will quickly become institutionalised - within two days - and that participants can be paid in excess of £1 million to be in the show.

"I wanted to write a murder mystery, which conventionally starts with a murder, but obviously you can't do that in the Big Brother house because it would all be over straight away."

In one respect, Night after Night represents a departure for Phil. "It's written in the present tense, which I hadn't done before, but reality TV needs to at least appear to be live."

Set in Knap Hall, a one time Tudor farmhouse, isolated by its rural location and dark reputation, Night after Night tells what happens when seven people, nationally known but strangers to one another, are locked in by Big Brother, who may not be in control ...."

For several years, there has been talk of Merrily making the leap from page to screen, and Phil reveals that ITV has optioned Merrily: "In theory she could be on the screen this time next year."

And Night after Night must also be appealing to makers of TV drama? Yes, says, Phil, there has been one request for a copy prior to publication. "It would make a great one-off drama."

Night after Night is published on Thursday, October 30 by Corvus, and Phil will be doing a series of book signings to coincide with publication. He will be at

25th October: Three Counties Bookshop, Ledbury, 3pm, on Saturday, October 25; Richard Booth's Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye – an official launch event with Barbara Erskine. Two authors on Halloween for a night of spooky books; Waterstones In Hereford, Saturday, November 1 at 11am; Rossiter Books, Ross-on-Wye, Saturday, November 1 at 2pm and Forest Bookshop in Coleford on Saturday, November 8 at 11am