Reading other people's letters is always a guilty pleasure. But for PC Roger Topping, who is contemplating a cache of twenty-seven undelivered missives retrieved from a back alley in Skipton, it's also work. The quaint English village of Burley Cross has been plunged into turmoil by the theft of the contents of its postbox, and no one is above suspicion.

Yet Topping's investigation into the curtain-twitching lives of the eminently respectable Burley Cross residents not only uncovers the dark underbelly of his beat, but reveals an unknown strength of character buried deep within the young flatfoot.

The denizens of Burley Cross inhabit a world of epic pettiness, where secrets are the currency. They plunge into complaints about dog shit, amateur dramatics, and an Auction of Promises that goes staggeringly wrong. Nicola Barker's epistolary novel is a work of immense comic range, sparkling, disquieting, and thrilling all at once.