SHE’S is a wizard when it comes to figures.

J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books have sold more than 450 million copies and have been translated into 74 languages.

It is five years since the final instalment of the Potter series was released. Did anyone seriously think the writer who created such an extraordinary set of characters would never hit a keyboard again?

Given the security her talent has surely now earned her, she can clearly afford on every level to wait until the right idea comes to her. And apparently it has.

Before yesterday’s 8am unveiling of The Casual Vacancy, publishers had gone to extreme lengths to keep copies under wraps.

There were no reviews ahead of the book’s release and copies were to be kept under lock and key by bookshops in sealed boxes only to be opened minutes before they went on sale

Hype enough but what struck me most about all the hoo-haa surrounding this cloak-and dagger of a book launch is the way in which Ms Rowling described how she knew this would be the next book she wrote

“It was,” she said, ”visceral. The idea just came to me, I had that almost visceral reaction when you know you want to do something.”

And there you have it. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck at any rate.

If the woman who conjured up Voldemort and all his oh-so uncuddly friends describes something as “visceral,” I think it wise to take notice.

In writing terms that sounds pretty powerful stuff to me.

The novel has been described as a “blackly comic” tale about an idyllic town ripped apart by a parish council election. Politics and strong language.

Not one for children then. But a literary novelist with a social conscience writing for grown-ups?

Sounds like the start of another global success story for J K Rowling.