The chalice - Phil Rickman

Glastonbury, legendary resting place of the Holy Grail, is a mysterious and haunting town. But when plump, dizzy Diane Ffitch returns home, it's with a sense of deep unease - and not only about her aristocratic family's reaction to her broken engagement and her New Age companions.

Plans for a new motorway have intensified the old bitterness between the local people and the 'pilgrims', so already the sacred air is soured. And, as the town becomes increasingly split by violence and death, Diane, local bookseller Juanita Carey and the writer Joe Powys must now face up to the worst of all possibilities: the existence of an anti-Grail - the dark chalice.

'Crisp, ironic prose, excellent dialogue and insightful characterisation ... not to mention a real sense of mounting evil' Time Out

'I emerged shell-shocked and still so completely involved with the story, I was going round in a daze' Barbara Erskine

'Wonderful - a book worthy of its subject' Bernard Cornwell