The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling

I was very curious about this book and I knew I could never get it in Sri Lanka. I had forgotten about it till I came to Melbourne and picked it up from the library. I must be one of the last readers to get to this very long and interesting story. Pagford is a small town in England divided into two distinct parts. The Fields the lower end of town inhabited by those with limited or no incomes and then the upper crust Pagford who feel (at least some of them) that they pay un necessarily for the ameneties and benefits of the Fields inhabitants most of whom they feel do not want to improve their lot but continue to depend on dole outs from the council. Into this scene comes the sudden death of Barry Fairbrother one of the council members and this death causes a "casual vacancy" and in its turn sets off a maelstrom of action, inaction, devastation, death and so much more. The number of characters are quite large, they ebb and flow with the story and most of them are constant even on the periphery because they are all relevant in some way to the larger picture and each plays an extremely important part in the whole. The book is a definite adult styled story and is an excellent read. Highlighting some of the lesser nice characters of humans ranging from avarice, envy, lust and greed there is plenty of profanity, drug abuse which makes it more suitable for adults. The book was a very long one and since I took a large print, it was really very long! Thpugh late to the party I loved it and am just grateful that I got to it eventually.