Against the grain J. A. Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is a

Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold

Bad timing on her part

parakeets and serpents - complete with a customary shoal of red herrings

Hartley jostling with rare pieces from the sleeping periodicals and literary magazines of the British Library collections

with Norway's old Cold War adversary reborn

Against the grain J. A. Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is aWhen his former deputy, Julie, invites Detective Peter Diamond and his partner Paloma to spend a week at her home in the depths of rural Somerset, Diamond is horrified. What could be worse than seven days in the back end of nowhere with nothing to do? But it turns out that Julie has an ulterior motive. A local woman is doing time for manslaughter after a wild party ended in a tragic accident: a man suffocated in a silo of grain. Nobody in the village