Which J.K. Rowling novel follows Barry Fairbrother’s death in the town of Pagford?

The J.K. Rowling novel that follows Barry Fairbrother’s death in Pagford is The Casual Vacancy.

Published in 2012, The Casual Vacancy was Rowling’s first novel after the Harry Potter series. It is an adult work about the fictional English parish of Pagford, where a vacancy on the local council triggers conflict over social class, poverty, addiction and the future of a housing estate called the Fields.

Barry Fairbrother’s sudden death creates the “casual vacancy” of the title. In British local-government terminology, a casual vacancy is an empty elected position that arises between regular elections. The phrase therefore describes both the plot’s political event and the novel’s broader concern with community divisions.

The book is not part of the wizarding world and contains no magic. The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm and Troubled Blood belong to Rowling’s later Cormoran Strike crime series, written under the name Robert Galbraith.