![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The influence of the Scottish national poet Robert Burns has been deep in her life and in her culture, and thus she feels bound to her fellows: “a man’s a man, for a’ that. Isabel feels an ethical obligation to help him figure it out. Ian has just had a heart transplant, and is suffering consequences that are perhaps mysterious, perhaps psychological. ![]() Here we are dealing with matters of the heart: Isabel’s, her niece Cat’s, Cat’s ex-boyfriend Jamie’s, her housekeeper Grace’s, and Isabel’s new friend Ian’s. The “mystery” occupying Isabel isn’t much of one I think of this book more as a way to spend a diverting day or two with lovely Scottish friends, rather than a nail-biting book you rocket through to solve the crime. Smith is a very pleasing writer, and Isabel is an entertaining companion. When Isabel is asked to cover for vacationing Cat at her delicatessen, Isabel meets a man with a most interesting problem. As this late-thirties-early-forties-ish attractive woman roams the streets of Edinburgh, we are privy to many of her thoughts and observations. In this delightful second installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s bestselling detective series, the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie gets caught up in a highly unusual affair of the heart. But one can picture Isabel Dalhousie, the main protagonist, pondering: “Well, but would it be unethical to use the title again if it were apt?” Isabel, editor of the “Review of Applied Ethics,” ponders everything. The title of this book might just as well have been “The Heart of the Matter,” but unfortunately that one was taken. ![]()
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