A perfectly good man

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?