The Unbearable Lightness of Scones

Starred review from November 9, 2009
Fans of bestseller Smith’s two mystery series set in Botswana and Edinburgh will find the same understanding, affectionate look at human frailties and foibles in this sunny series about the adventures and misadventures of a precocious six-year-old, Bertie Pollock, and a host of other folks in contemporary Edinburgh. In the superlative fifth entry (after The World According to Bertie
), Bertie’s parents engage in a Wodehousian power struggle about how their young child should be raised, wondering whether his desire to become a scout is a good thing. The neatly interwoven story lines include the travails of a young, newly married couple and an artist who finds himself saddled with too many dogs. One character’s scheme to recover a Spode tea cup that her neighbor has permanently appropriated is particularly evocative of P.G. Wodehouse, though Smith’s characters are less broadly drawn and more multidimensional than, say, Jeeves and Wooster.

March 29, 2010
The fifth book in McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series re-visits the quirky characters of a tiny neighborhood of Edinburgh: aging Angus and his dog, young Matthew with his new bride, precocious six-year-old Bertie and his overbearing mother, and others. The dry humor and Wodehousian wit in the descriptions and observations of the eccentric characters give them charm, but the book is a study in ordinary people living ordinary lives, and the narrative is slow paced. Robert Ian Mackenzie's deep, sonorous voice is ideal for the exposition and the voices of the male characters, but that same rich masculine voice is a drawback when used for the dialogue of the female and child characters, who end up sounding stilted and impaired. An Anchor paperback (Reviews, Nov. 9).

November 15, 2009
Life goes on, and on in this fifth helping of luminously understated adventures for the denizens of 44 Scotland Street and environs.

Edinburgh, reflects improbably wealthy gallery owner Matthew,"was always the same; nothing ever changed." But the cumulative effect of tiny changes day after day is to make the city a different place. Matthew himself is the prime example. He's thrown over adoring employee Pat MacGregor for schoolteacher Elspeth Harmony; their wedding begins Smith's latest cycle of 100 chapters originally serialized in The Scotsman. Dropping Pat as completely as Matthew does, Smith makes it clear during an Australian honeymoon that marriage with Elspeth requires unexpected adjustments. Back home, Matthew's painter friend Angus Lordie must cope with domestic changes of his own, courtesy of his gold-toothed dog Cyril (a challenge that's resolved as abruptly as it arose) and gangster Lard O'Connor, who leaves Angus with what just might be a magically important portrait. Anthropologist Domenica Macdonald plots to recover a Spode cup that friend and neighbor Antonia Collie filched from her flat and finds out more about Antonia than she ever wanted to know. Warmhearted Big Lou Brown, who presides over the Morning After Coffee Bar, plays unwilling hostess to Scotland's most distinguished fugitive. Pat's ex-boyfriend, narcissistic Bruce Anderson, caroms from one undeserved bit of good fortune to the next, only to be stricken by a sudden change of heart. And six-year-old Bertie Pollock, who begs to join the Cub Scouts so he can escape the suffocating attentions of his controlling mother Irene and his vile little schoolmate Olive, meets crime novelist Ian Rankin in a novel role.

The elevated proportion of reminiscences, facts and opinions to incremental new developments suggests that Smith's prodigious invention for gently pointed incidents may be flagging. But no fan of this civilized and civilizing soap opera (The World According to Bertie, 2008, etc.) will want to skip an installment.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from November 1, 2009
Theres much ado at Edinburghs 44 Scotland Street, the fictional residence in McCall Smiths whimsical series. This fifth installment (after The World according to Bertie, 2008) finds more angst for six-year-old genius Bertie, who desperately wants to join the Cub Scouts. Irene, his excruciatingly overbearing mother, dismisses such desires as uncivilized. (Arent the young lads yoga and Italian lessons stimulating enough?) Meanwhile, milquetoast gallery-owner Matthew brushes with death while on honeymoon in Australia, vain and vacuous Bruce ponders a plum modeling assignment, and lonely intellectual Domenica suspects her neighbor Antonia of dealing drugs. (The woman did steal a blue Spode teacup after all; could more dire crimes be far behind?) Domenica and portrait painter Angus Lordie consider ways to expose Antonias illegal activities, while Angus perceptive canine Cyril looks on. (Cyril has been engaged in some roguish behavior of his own, fathering a litter of six playful pups.) In the books preface, McCall Smith wryly insists that his tale is entirely true, or almost. While the actual Scotland Street doesnt quite reach 44, one can easily imagine the likes of Bertie wearily marching off to the psychiatrist, Bruce preening before every available mirror, and Cyril epitomizing the old adage about mans best friend. Who wouldnt want to live among this endlessly lively crew?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)