This is the fourth Isabel Dalhousie novel, as I am pleased to note Pantheon is now marketing them, not mysteries. Now I wonder why my library still keeps them in the mysteries...?

It's a lovely, warm way to spend a frustrating day's end, reading a well-written book about quiet, domestic things, and feeling thereby that one has checked in on the doings of some rather remote, but nonetheless cherished, friends. That's the charm of the Isabel Dalhousie novels for me. It's just smooth sailing such as this that gets comparatively little respect, critical or commercial; how glad I am that Precious Ramotswe has given McCall Smith the megaphone that brought these unfashionably serene books to a broad, general market.

And how delightedly I received this particular book! The previous entry in the series wasn't very good at all, seeming to me to have been composed on a laptop perched on the author's knee while traveling to signings, clunked onto the never-the-right-height hotel desk for a fast few hundred before passing out, and edited by fax while jouncing over unpaved roads in Botswana. While I'm not quite ready to forget that readerly disappointment, I'm a long way from unhappy after this evening's pleasures.

Isabel does several interesting things in this book, and does them with verve. I think it was this sense of verve that I missed in book three, "The Right Attitude to Rain."

Cat, Isabel's niece, appears again in this book, though she isn't as central a character...this is but one example of the evolution of the series, that natural fading in and out of some characters. It's just like life. Only better...it takes less time. Recommended, no reservations, for anyone needing a quiet place to relax and have a good conversation with good people. ( )

good and funny, interesting story-line but don't need it

With this installment the Isabel Dalhousie series completes its transition from detective fiction to mainstream social observational novels. There is some mystery as the academic Isabel interferes in the probable suicide of an artist but much more of the book explores the novelty of late motherhood, the effects of envy, and the value of money. All this is achieved with a warm witty gentleness; a great affection for human fraility. ( )

You know when you are friends with a couple and then they have a baby and they become baby bores - obsessed with their amazing production? Well that has happened to Isabel Dalhousie in this book. If you are enthralled by the idea of baby buggies, gripe water and breast feeding this is for you. To me it was a big disappointment after giving all the previous novels in the series four stars I think I may have been generous in giving this only three. ( )

I love this series and this book is a nice addition to it. Admittedly, its short on mystery and much longer on in-depth characters and how they interact together, but that's fine by me. Over the course of the books I've come to enjoy Isabel's family and friends and relate to her strongly as I'm also a woman who spends a lot of time thinking about life's situations and meaning. I love the writing and quietness of these books and continue to look forward to more in the series. ( )