PERFECTLY GOOD MAN PB – PATRICK GALE

The new novel from Patrick Gale, author of Richard Judy-bestseller `Notes from an Exhibition’, returning readers to his beloved Cornish coastline. `Do you need me to pray for you now for a specific reason?’ `I’m going to die.’ `We’re all going to die. Does dying frighten you?’ `I mean I’m going to kill myself.’ When 20-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralysed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in the presence of Barnaby Johnson, the much-loved priest of a West Cornwall parish, the tragedy s reverberations open up the fault-lines between Barnaby and his nearest and dearest – the gulfs of unspoken sadness that separate them all. Across this web of relations scuttles Barnaby s repellent nemesis – a man as wicked as his prey is virtuous. Returning us to the rugged Cornish landscape of `Notes from an Exhibition’, Patrick Gale lays bare the lives and the thoughts of a whole community and asks us: what does it mean to be good?