Dull and disappointing, especially after the very enjoyable "Ladies No. 1 Detectice Agency" series. It was hard to get into the story, and difficult to finish.

Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, lives an affluent, contemplative life in Edinburgh. After a concert she sees a man fall to his death from the balcony of the concert hall and reasons that as the last person he saw before dying, she owes Mark Fraser something -- in this case, to discover whether he was pushed.

Convinced that he was murdered, Isabel makes inquiries among Fraser's colleagues in the financial world. There are a number of possible suspects and not all is what it seems. Isabel consults with her opinionated housekeeper, Grace, and partners in her investigation with her niece Cat's former boyfriend, the handsome bassoonist Jaime. After some surprises and a brush with personal danger, Isabel comes to the truth.

THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB is the first book of Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series. Like the "traditionally built" Precious Ramotswe in McCall's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Isabel takes a thoughtful approach to all her affairs; just as you'd expect from a philosopher who loves music, Scottish art, and the poetry of W.H. Auden. The mystery is not the main event in this series, but rather a showcase for Isabel's moral digressions. If you're into blazing action, this book won't have enough movement for you. But if you'd like to stroll the streets of Edinburgh and experience life through the considering eyes of a philosopher, give this series a try. Four stars for characters, plotting, charm and reflection. The missing star may be reclaimed when we know Isabel better.

I listened to the audio download from Amazon subsidiary Audible, Inc, which is the same production available on unabridged CD; read with philosopher-like steadiness by Davina Porter.

Linda Bulger, 2008

Supposedly the star of this show is a well educated women in her 40's. Unfortunatly, her inner musings are mundane, repetative and seem more typical of someone in her 80's who has lived a dull, rule-dominated life. Further, she lacks common sense in human relations. She leaks her anxiety in damaging ways onto others and the author tries to convince readers that this reflects some comprehensible moral code about truth telling. The transcription of this dreary woman's inner musings is boring in the extreme, even for someone like me, who enjoys ethical discussions. It seems that the author took an intro course in ethical/moral reasoning and feels qualified to wax eloquent about tempests in teapots. What I don't understand is why a publisher wouldn't have the good sense or courage to tell this previoulsy successful author that she is out to lunch with this dreary tome. I'll probably never know who killed that young man because I can't bear to proceed further into the book, but here's my guess - Neil did it to get rid of a romatic rival. The insider trading tip was a lie to send our heroine down the wrong path.

This story was a very slow mover. In spite of the fact that the main character, Isabel, believes that a young man has been pushed over a balcony, nothing goes along at a pace that suggests that there might be a crime that wants solving.

In my opinion, Smith's writing was awful. The main fault is in Isabel, who is undoubtedly one of the most smug and pretentious heroines in modern literature. She's a truly annoying character, but what's bad is that she -- a philosopher, mind you -- has no self-awareness of what a twit she is. At one point, she reflects (with lots of mental back-patting) that she is a person who "believes in privacy," all while she's being a pushy and obnoxious nosey parker, intruding on people's grief and their personal lives in the name of "moral responsibility" to the man whose death she witnessed. I know. I didn't think it made any sense, either.

She simply could not have been more irritating. Plus, the ending fell flat -- it was a truly uninspired way to finish off the story.

The greatest recommendation I can give is that this book is not long at all. If you insist on reading it, it won't take long for you to finish it. You can return it to your public library before it is overdue. Because....you aren't going to BUY it, are you?

This book is very weak as a mystery, but as you'll see if you follow the series, the mystery is not the point. While the first two books are billed as "Isabel Dalhousie mysteries," the last two are labelled as "Isabel Dalhousie novels," which is more accurate. Alexander McCall Smith does an excellent job of creating a world that you'll want to revisit over and over. Isabel Dalhousie doesn't come off very well in this book, making snap judgments and jumping to erroneous conclusions, but over the course of the series I've come to consider her quite sympathetic and entertaining. I like this book in itself for the interesting details about Edinburgh; with subsequent books, the series only gets better.