The new rector (by Rebecca Shaw)

(Amazon UK link)

I have only previously read one book by Rebecca Shaw. I found the plot generally interesting, in a soap-opera kind of way, and some of the people intriguing. Yet the characters, I thought, were fairly shallow and the conversations a bit trite. 

Still, 'Talk of the village' made good light reading. I discovered, after finishing it, that it was second book in a series about a fictional village called Turnham Malpas. So when I saw 'The new rector' inexpensively in a charity shop, it wasn't a difficult decision to buy it. This is the first in the series. 

In this volume, a couple called Peter and Caroline are new to the village. Peter is a clergyman, but seems rather naive. He soon finds himself having to comfort the recently bereaved Suzy Meadows, which turns out to be rather a risky situation.

Meanwhile, some teenagers are running wild, and a nasty joke is played on Muriel, an elderly spinster. She is devastated, but then cheered by the arrival in the village of an old friend called Ralph.

The subplots are cleverly intertwined, and the people fairly believable on the whole, if somewhat two-dimensional. There is slightly more violence than I'm comfortable with, which was a surprise in what seems to be a cosy village novel. But I thought it made pleasant light reading on the whole.

Recommended in a low-key way if you want something very light that doesn't require too much thought, but which covers one or two interesting issues. 'The new rector' was re-issued in the year 2000, and is still in print in the UK.