The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling

JK Rowling’s first post-Potter book is never less than readable, as expected, but it's somehow unadventurous. There’s some superficial excitement, in that the plot almost strains at opportunities to get sex and drugs in – a teenager uses the ‘c’ word notably early on, almost as a warning to kids who may have picked the book up to put it back down.  But the book isn’t really adventurous where it counts, in plot or in form. It’s a deliberate throwback to the kind of 19^th century novel set in a small community where everyone is linked to everybody else. There is interest in that the apparent ‘hero’ character, perhaps significantly called Barry, dies early on, leaving the casual vacancy of the title on the local council. Petty local villains then try and hijack his council spot, as well as the plot of the book. There’s some interest in the notion of the vacuum created by the book itself losing a hero here, but this isn’t a great fit with the notion that small-stakes infighting is all the more vicious for having so little to fight for. An okay read in the end, but it doesn't find the magic in the mundane. [Johnny Chess]