The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

   I may be the only person on Earth to have never read a Harry Potter book so I have nothing with which to compare J. K. Rowling's first "adult" book. In my mind it stands alone as compelling & complex, a scathing pronouncement on English Society.  There are those who dismiss this book saying she "should stick to kids' books" and I can't disagree more. Yes some of the characters are dull, dim-witted, and unlikeable - really?  That's the point - and it's crucial to the story. Rowling's writing style gives them incredible dimension and credibility.

   In the modern rural English countryside, a popular council member dies of an aneurism triggering an oh-too-sophisticated scramble for the vacant seat. As the characters are slowly introduced, their relationships are woven together in a complex plot towards a tragic end. Rowling peels back their thin veneer of respectability to reveal the secrets, prejudices, pretentiousness, self-absorption and shame.
   One can understand why the Potter books are so popular once you glimpse Rowling's portrayal of children, which figure so prominently in this story.  She gets into their brains, makes you see through their eyes, feel their pain.   The adults brood about, nursing petty jealousies and feuds, either completely unaware or painfully mistaken of the effects their actions are having on the young residents of the town - until it's too late.

Her writing style is sometimes explosive and visually graphic:
“Onwards and outwards the news of Barry’s death spread, radiating, halo-like, from those who had been at the hospital....Gradually the facts lost form and focus; in some cases they became distorted. In places, Barry himself was lost behind the nature of his ending, and he became no more than an eruption of vomit and piss, a twitching pile of catastrophe, and it seemed incongruous, even grotesquely comical, that a man should have died so messily at the smug little golf club.”

This is not your grandmother's English drama.  Those expecting fast-paced action or paranormal activities will be sorely disappointed. But this is another kind of classic - more "Room With A View" with a bit of "Deathly Hallows" thrown in.