THE COMFORTS OF A MUDDY SATURDAY: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel
Alexander McCall Smith
Pantheon
Mystery
ISBN: 9780375425134
Isabel Dalhousie fans already know that the redoubtable philosopher of Edinburgh will leave no stone unturned once she encounters an ethical conundrum that piques her limitless nosiness --- a nosiness that more than once has found her confronting her own self-doubts but nevertheless doesn’t stop her from unraveling life’s Gordian knots to seek a path to justice, usually of a moral nature.
In THE COMFORTS OF A MUDDY SATURDAY, Isabel meets the distraught wife of a doctor who has lost his license to practice and, nearly suicidal, is living in self-imposed exile. He has been accused of altering crucial records in a medical study that may have caused a drug to go on the market that has since proven dangerous to people with certain health conditions. Is he guilty, or the victim of a vindictive colleague? Is the pharmaceutical company trying to cover up their own mistakes? The doctor’s wife wants only to get to the truth of the matter and comes to Isabel to make discreet enquiries to help set her mind at ease.
Meanwhile, Isabel’s relationship with Jamie, the youthful father of her young son, Charlie, is the subject of great concern as Jamie explores new musical career horizons with a famous composer. Sometimes, Isabel comes to discover, she thinks too much. Her philosophical approach to life leads her to place personal decisions under a microscope to be examined from in every conceivable light. She scrutinizes each nuance until reality and her vivid imagination tend to blur. Pity poor Jamie, who blissfully goes along in life teaching his students, playing in the symphony, and loving Isabel and Charlie, while living with an insecure older woman who may well be a reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes. This results in some comical situations, frequently leading Isabel astray and leaving Jamie and the housekeeper Grace in a state of bewilderment.
Isabel’s introspections also lead the reader to one’s deeper thoughts on right, wrong and all shades of gray without ever once mounting a soapbox. Alexander McCall Smith addresses life’s mysteries in his comfortable stories of contemporary life in Scotland with the same deft sense of humor he brought to the heroine of his hugely successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
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