Alexander McCall Smith’s “The Sunday Philosophy Club” may be the most contemplative mystery a reader will come across.
“The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” the book that introduced many readers to McCall Smith, is totally charming, as warm as Botswana, where it’s set. Precious Ramotswe, the chief character in that book and the four which have followed, is lovable.
When starting a new series, some writers retain the voice they used in their previous series. Not McCall Smith. His style in this new book is as cool as Edinburgh, Scotland, where it takes place.
Again he has a female protagonist, Isabel Dalhousie, and again he skillfully portrays a woman.
Isabel studied philosophy in college and now, in her 40s, edits a publication, “The Review of Applied Ethics.” Applied ethics also seems to be front and center in her thoughts.
Someone says “conscience,” and it makes her realize that she seldom hears that word anymore because guilt has disappeared from people’s lives. This is good. she thinks, because guilt has caused unhappiness, and bad because guilt has a role in moral action.
She thinks about good manners and this leads her to a mental rap about good manners as building blocks of civil society – a way to transmit caring about other people.
The book is full of these little essays, not pedantic or difficult to follow but certainly not common in a mystery novel. The reader gets used to them, but they probably won’t appeal to anyone who prizes the nitty-gritty.
The mystery begins when Isabel attends a concert and, after it ends, sees a young man fall from a balcony. He dies when he hits the ground floor.
Isabel visits the victim’s roommates in a large apartment. At an art gallery, she happens to meet his boss at a small brokerage firm. She wangles an invitation to meet the man’s fiance and, through a friend, gets introduced to a former employee of the company.
Not until halfway through the book does she consider the possibility that the dead man had been murdered.
She had already asked herself why she was trying to find out what had happened to him. She could work out having a moral obligation to others, she reasons, but “it might be that she found it intellectually exciting to become involved.”
Other characters include Isabel’s housekeeper, a marvel of rock-solid common sense, and Isabel’s niece, who is a delight. The two men in the niece’s life are well-drawn.
Readers can expect McCall Smith to write more books about Isabel Dalhousie. After all, there was no meeting of the Sunday Philosophy Club in this one.
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