44 Scotland Street
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3.5 • 33 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The bestselling author of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series brings his trademark warmth and wisdom to his novel chronicling the lives of the residents of 44 Scotland Street that's 'as charming as the bohemian street in which it's set' (Scottish Daily Record)
The story revolves around the comings and goings at No. 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in Edinburgh. Immediately recognisable are the Edinburgh chartered surveyor, stalwart of the Conservative Association, who dreams of membership of Scotland's most exclusive golf club. We have the pushy Stockbridge mother, and her prodigiously talented five-year-old son, who is making good progress with the saxophone and with his Italian. Then there is Domenica Macdonald who is that type of Edinburgh lady who sees herself as a citizen of a broader intellectual world.
In McCall Smith's hands such characters retain charm and novelty, simultaneously arousing both mirth and empathy. 44 Scotland Street is vintage McCall Smith, tackling issues of trust and honesty, snobbery and hypocrisy, love and loss, but all with great lightness of touch. Clever, elegant and funny, this is a novel that provides huge entertainment but which is underpinned by the moral dilemmas of everyday life and the characters' struggles to resolve them.
Contains an exclusive extract from The Department of Sensitive Crimes, the first novel in the new Detective Varg series by Alexander McCall Smith
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like Smith's bestselling Botswana mysteries, this book comprising 110 sections, originally serialized in the Scotsman, that drolly chronicle the lives of residents in an Edinburgh boarding house is episodic, amusing and peopled with characters both endearing and benignly problematic. Pat, 21, is on her second "gap year" (her first yearlong break from her studies was such a flop she refuses to discuss it), employed at a minor art gallery and newly settled at the eponymous address, where she admires vain flatmate Bruce and befriends neighbor Domenica. A low-level mystery develops about a possibly valuable painting that Pat discovers, proceeds to lose and then finds in the unlikely possession of Ian Rankin, whose bestselling mysteries celebrate the dark side of Edinburgh just as Smith's explore the (mostly) sunny side. The possibility of romance, the ongoing ups and downs of the large, well-drawn cast of characters, the intricate plot and the way Smith nimbly jumps from situation to situation and POV to POV he was charged, after all, with keeping his newspaper readers both momentarily satisfied and eager for the next installment works beautifully in book form. No doubt Smith's fans will clamor for more about 44 Scotland Street, and given the author's celebrated productivity, he'll probably give them what they want.
Customer Reviews
Good read
Not my usual genre but it was nice to visit. A simple read, not a lot happening in the story line but an easy, uncomplicated, leisurely read. A couple of lines have stuck with me, quite nicely written