Perfectly Good Man

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?