What is the name of J.K. Rowling’s 2012 novel about the fictional English village of Pagford?

J.K. Rowling’s 2012 novel about the fictional English village of Pagford is The Casual Vacancy.

The Casual Vacancy was Rowling’s first published novel after the Harry Potter series. Little, Brown published it in the United Kingdom on 27 September 2012. It is an adult novel set in the fictional West Country village of Pagford, where a sudden death creates a vacancy on the local parish council.

The vacant council seat exposes long-standing disputes involving class, poverty, addiction, adolescence and local politics. The story follows a large cast of residents and teenagers rather than one central hero. Its title refers both to the formal political vacancy and to the wider gaps in responsibility between Pagford’s institutions and its inhabitants.

The book is separate from the wizarding world and contains no magical elements. It was adapted into a three-part BBC television miniseries in 2015. The novel is sometimes confused with Rowling’s later crime fiction, but those books were published under the Robert Galbraith pseudonym and center on detective Cormoran Strike.