Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson

An unexpected delight, like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, with the added benefit that this first time author is still very much alive and may have more novels ahead of her. Although the setting is familiar from “cozy” mysteries set in an England that is passing, if it ever existed, and the characters could have been stock figures, somehow there is a richness and nuance in this book that raises it well above others. Yes, it’s a small village, and the main character is a widowed retired Major, but other characters reflect the changing times: the English-born Pakistani shopkeeper, who is still treated as an “immigrant;” her angry nephew, who has a secret; and the Major’s social-climbing materialistic son. It’s a love story, a novel of manners (or lack thereof), and an exploration of race relations in twenty-first century England. 358 pp.