A year ago, almost to the day, I finished reading Nobody’s Fool, Russo’s first book set in his imaginary town of North Bath, New York. I’d been introduced to Sully, Rub, Mrs Peoples and the rest of the cast and had enjoyed my time with them so much that I was delighted to learn that a follow-up book was also available. It was late August by the time I sat down to devour this second episode. But it didn’t quite turn out that way, I got stuck after about 50 pages. The book had opened with a lengthy section set at the funeral of the local judge, seen through the eyes of Chief of Police Douglas Raymer. I didn’t recognise Raymer – was in the first book? And even if he was, where’s Sully and Rub? It didn't seem to have the flow or the instant appeal of the first book. I put the book down and didn’t pick it up again for a couple of months.

But I kept seeing great reviews and I knew I had to give it a second chance. And I’m so glad I did! Raymer, it turns out, was in the first book – in a cameo role, he was the cop Sully had coldcocked one day after a verbal joust – and he is the central character this time around. At the funeral Raymer had been ruminating on the fact that his wife had been about to leave him when she tragically tripped and fell down the stairs at their home and died from her injuries. This had happened very recently and left him haunted by not only the discovery of her body but also the knowledge that she'd had an unknown lover - someone he most likely knows - somewhere in this town. He is desperate to know who it was and he has one clue, a device to remotely open a garage door had been found hidden in her car and the police chief is certain it will lead him to the man.

Sully is here to, as is best friend Rub and most of the other people I’d met before. But ten years have passed and a number of characters are no more. Sully’s close friend Wirf, the one-legged lawyer, and his landlady Mrs Peoples have died. It transpires that Mrs Peoples bequeathed her house to Sully – the house in which she’d occupied the ground floor whilst renting him the first floor space. But apart from Sully’s financial state having significantly improved (and that of his sometime former boss, Carl, having nose dived) little else seems to have changed. That is apart from Sully’s health. He’d always had a bad knee but more seriously now he’s been diagnosed as suffering from a serious heart condition – one that is likely to see him off in a year or so unless he does something about it.

There are plenty of comic moments as we track the lives of these people but there’s now a touch of darkness here too. Roy Purdy – another minor character from the first book – is back in town and eager to cause trouble and personal injury. This is something that was largely absent from the first book but it adds additional texture this time around. Yes, at heart it’s an amusing tale of working-class people in a small, relatively poor town, but Purdy’s inclusion here alters the balance somewhat – for the better, I think.

The further I got into this book the more I became invested in the fate of Raymer and Sully in particular, but others too. I wanted them to succeed, to be happy… and to be healthy. By the time I’d got to the end I’d already decided I wanted a chapter three to this story – I want to know what happens next. It’s a brilliantly engaging piece and lovers of Nobody’s Fool will find plenty to relish here. What a skilful writer Russo is: able to create comic moments and quick-fire dialogue to amuse and engage the reader, but also able to to inject that element of fear and tension too. It’s a brilliant piece of work, I loved it and I’ll miss it dearly.

Lots of characters, some pretty wild happenings, and a potent mix of comedy and tragedy make this a wonderful novel. Taking place over just one action-packed weekend, we are introduced to the inhabitants of a small town, a town in decline, but which nevertheless never lacks in adventures and crises of all kinds. Friendship and love, in all their different manifestations, loss and sadness and regret, overall it’s a pretty elegiac book, and is a story told with such heart and warmth that the reader is inexorably drawn into the lives of these wonderfully portrayed and empathetic people. It’s not a perfect book and I found one or town of the characters not quite credible and one or two of the events not quite realistic but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.