Which J.K. Rowling novel features the fictional town of Pagford?

The fictional town of Pagford features in J.K. Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy. Pagford is an English parish whose political and social tensions drive the book’s plot.

The story begins when Barry Fairbrother, a parish councillor, dies unexpectedly. His death creates a casual vacancy on the local council, leading to an election between candidates with sharply different views about the community. One major dispute concerns the Fields, a troubled housing estate connected to the neighboring town of Yarvil and to a treatment center called Bellchapel.

Through the election and its consequences, the novel examines how public decisions affect families, teenagers, and people living in poverty. Pagford is fictional, although the setting draws on the social and administrative patterns of English towns and parishes. The book was Rowling’s first published novel after Harry Potter and her first novel written specifically for an adult readership.

Readers sometimes associate Rowling’s adult fiction only with the Cormoran Strike books. The Casual Vacancy is separate from that detective series and was published under Rowling’s own name in 2012.