What's Bred in the Bone is of course the middle volume of a trilogy. It's been twenty years or so since I read them, and I enjoyed some parts more than others, but if you haven't read The Rebel Angels, your slow start may have something to do with leaping into the middle of a very weird universe.

Ah, thanks—reading the first book might have helped! We just looked at the description on the back cover, thought it sounded interesting, and dived in.

Davies's books are, indeed, weird universes! I haven't read the Cornish trilogy but I enjoyed the Deptford trilogy a lot and liked the Salterton, too. Like hsgudnason, I enjoyed some parts more than others -- that probably sounds obvious but Davies's trilogies have a lot of variation.

Yes, LH, Davies liked writing trilogies rather than enormous single volumes, and even though the three parts can be read singly it is best to read them in order, although the successive volumes are not simply chronological extensions of the earlier ones.

There's a Lord Selachii in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, who is named so for the perceived shark-like qualities of aristocrats.

The Rebel Angels is my favorite Davies as it includes gypsies, magic spells, Canadian universities, music, cuckolds, adultery, mad professors, love-struck priests, and the Wisdom of God. Good stuff.

The Rebel Angels also contains a great bequest:

However, should any snooper decide to dig me up, I make a final bequest under the provision of the Human Tissue Gift Act of 1971. I leave my arse-hole, and all necessary integument thereto appertaining, to the Faculty of Philosophy; let it be stretched upon a steel frame so that each New Year's Day, the senior professor may blow through it, uttering a rich, fruity note, as my salute to the world of which I now take leave, in search of the Great Perhaps.