Found this shiny new hardback copy at the top of the escalators in Canary Wharf shortly after the book was released. I like to believe that someone had read and was passing it on a la Bookcrossing.com.

I enjoyed this book so much more than I had expected to. Like many people, I was curious about what sort of non Hogwarts based adult authoring, JK Rowling would come up with and I think she should be really proud of herself. The book was at times Franzenesque (a compliment from me, a fan of Jonathan Franzen) while all action takes place in a seemingly idyllic rural English village.

Barry Fairbrother's death impacts the small community in ways unimaginable when the book starts off - and it does start off really slowly; my only gripe - and we are introduced to an endless parade of characters. By the end of the novel, the whole town has used 'The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother' to speak for them and say and act in ways which they never would themselves.

I had expected the book to be a dry waltz through the uninspiring mores of local politics but it was a richer, more nuanced lambada through the quirks and foibles of the human condition.

Passed on to a friend who wanted to read it.