Helen Simonson’s first novel, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is such an enjoyable and satisfying read, that I’m hoping she’s hard at work on her second one. Her plot here is relevant, believable and beautifully constructed, and tells her story in language that is downright delicious and delectable.

Major Pettigrew is a retired British serviceman, a sixty-something widower, still grieving for his beloved wife, who died two years earlier. Mrs. Ali, only a few years younger, and also a widow, is the proprietor of the little shop that she ran with her husband for many years in the Major’s little English village. When she comes to the Major’s door on a mundane errand at the beginning of the novel, we immediately know that these two, despite their very different backgrounds, in a still highly class- conscious England, will get together. But, knowing the final destination doesn’t lessen the thrill of the journey this book takes us on. For example, Simonson faithfully follows Chekhov’s playwriting dictum that if you put a gun on the table in Act One you must fi re it by Act Three. Here a gun is displayed on page three, but Simonson, with masterful control of suspense, manages to hold off fi ring it until 340 pages later, only fifteen pages before the end of the book. It also takes nearly that long for her hero and heroine to finally be united.

Simonson writes gorgeous, passionate, almost Shakespearean prose poetry for her not-so-young lovers. “If you insist on paying me such lavish compliments, Major,’ said Mrs. Ali, blushing again, ‘my conscience will force me to change into a black jumper and perhaps a wool hat.’ ‘In that case, let us leave immediately so we can put that horrible option out of reach,’ he said.”

There are several young couples in this story, each struggling to conduct their affairs as wisely, and as elegantly, as the Major and Mrs. Ali. One confused and impetuous young man asks, “Do you really understand what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman? My dear boy,’ said the Major. ‘Is there really any other kind?”

Simonson’s gifted storytelling always keeps her tale on track throughout the course of this true love, as it never doth run smooth. But run it does, all over the beautiful English countryside, which, as far too many other places, is rapidly being despoiled by rapacious land developers, helped here by the Major’s own son, a small, but ambitious cog in the banking industry.

“There’s no point in being confrontational and losing out on something lucrative, is there?’ asked Roger. ‘On what philosophical basis does that idea rest?’ asked the Major. ‘Oh, it’s simple pragmatism, dad. It’s called the real world. If we refused to do business with the morally questionable, the deal volume would drop in half and the good guys like us would end up poor. Then where would we all be?’ ‘On a nice dry spit of land known as the moral high ground?’ suggested the Major.”