In summer, and particularly when the wind blows south-west across the lawn, the sceptic tank gives out a strong stench... 'Oh, it is a body,' the girls say. 'We have a body in there. No one you know. It decomposes, of course, but so slowly one quite despairs.'

In their lovely, quiet Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to the villagers simply as 'the girls'. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life.

But when a moment of small, surprising passion intrudes into the equilibrium of their world, the girls' lives take a deeply unsettling turn. First comes motherhood. Then comes murder.

Part-macabre comedy, part-crime thriller, part-cosy romance, John Bowen's The Girls is a novel like none other. Told with warmth, affection and fun, yet laced with darkness and unease, 'the girls' will ensure you never look on Middle England quite so quaintly again.

'Absolutely wicked' Armistead Maupin

'Startlingly offbeat' Gore Vidal

'[For] people who like Myra Breckinridge as well as Miss Marple; fans of Beryl Bainbridge, Russell Greenan and Patricia Highsmith; those who feel Barbara Pym-ish on some days and Stephen King-ish on others . . . The Girls charms us as only certain tales 'of village life' can' Washington Post