Casual Vacancy / J. K. Rowling / 503 pages

"A casual vacancy is deemed to have occurred:  when a local councillor fails to make his declaration of acceptance of office within the proper time; or...on the day of his death."  When councillor Barry Fairbrother dies of an aneurysm, his seat is sought after by three rivals - Miles Mollison, Simon Price, and Colin Wall.  Barry was a supporter of maintaining Pagford support of The Fields; others want to see The Fields ceded to Yarvil.  Although Pagford appears to be an idyllic English town, it is, in fact, a town at war.  Andrew Price, a teenager, is determined to sabotage his father's council bid by hacking into the council website and exposing his father's dishonesty (but not his tendency to invoke physical terror and ritual humiliation) writing as "The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother".  "This ugly act of filial disloyalty had sprung from the primordial soup of anger, frustration, and fear that had slopped inside him all his rational life."  He is not alone in his anger, frustration, or fear.  His friend, Fats - the principal's son, envies the fact that  what Andrew has done is "ingenious and potentially explosive in its consequences."  Could he do the same?  Although the Harry Potter books have not yet stood the test of time, it is generally accepted that they will become classics in Children's Literature, not so J. K.  Rowling's first venture into writing for adults....I found Casual Vacancy to be a huge disappointment...It is depressing and, hopefully, unrealistically depraved.