The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

July 28, 2008
In Smith's winning fifth novel to feature Edinburgh philosophical sleuth Isabel Dalhousie (after The Careful Use of Compliments
), Dalhousie, who's recently assumed ownership of the obscure journal she's edited for many years, the Review of Applied Ethics
, applies her deductive gifts to the case of a disgraced doctor. When a patient dies after taking a new antibiotic that Marcus Moncrieff deemed safe in clinical trials, the doctor's original report turns out to contain falsified data. Did Moncrieff skew the data to please the drug manufacturers? Moncrieff's wife turns to Isabel for help in lifting her husband out of his despondency. While the truth isn't straightforward, the motives of the guilty party prove to be both plausible and rational. The strengths of the book, as with Smith's better known No. 1 Ladies' Detective series, lie in its protagonist's determination to treat others without judgment—and in the author's revealing glimpses into the human soul.

This fifth Isabel Dalhousie mystery continues to charm, and Davina Porter continues to develop the lovable heroine--equally sweet and tart, shrewd and loving, fallible and yet entirely reliable. This time around, the mystery doesn't even arise until a quarter of the way through. No matter. Listeners are entirely diverted by Isabel as she ponders the issues that cross her desk as editor of THE REVIEW OF APPLIED ETHICS, as well as those that cross her path through the varied cultural haunts of Edinburgh and those that cross the path of her brisk housekeeper, Grace, at home. Devotees will hear more news of Isabel's friends and family, each a delightful companion, expertly voiced. When the "mystery" is solved, we're surprised, but not overly. "I'm not much of sleuth," Isabel says--an admission that seems to endear her to us even more. J.L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine