The Peppermint Tea Chronicles

October 1, 2019
The charmingly imperishable regulars of 44 Scotland St. and environs have reason to wonder: "Was that what life entailed: not doing very much, and doing it every day, in the same place...?" After announcing her intention of departing from Edinburgh to pursue graduate studies (and a barely concealed affair) with Dr. Hugo Fairbairn (A Time of Love and Tartan, 2018, etc.), Irene Pollock has finally decamped, leaving her spineless husband, Stuart, and her children, 7-year-old Bertie and baby Ulysses, weak-kneed with relief. Stuart takes the opportunity of his wife's absence to pursue a chaste affair. But Bertie's malevolent schoolmate, Olive, remains as actively present as ever, and her threat to expose a secret Bertie shares with his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson seriously complicates both boys' lives. Finlay, another 7-year-old whom coffee bar owner Big Lou is fostering, turns out to be a ballet prodigy--which would be great news if Lou could only afford the expensive boarding school program his teacher recommends to her. Gallery owner Matthew Harmony is so determined to find a suitable man for his assistant, Pat Macgregor, that he fails to notice how trapped his wife, Elspeth, feels in Nine Mile Burn with the couple's triplet sons. Bruce Anderson, the blandly self-absorbed twit who dumped Pat ages ago, deigns to accept the companionship of Jenny, a looker whose wealthy father owns a distillery. Anthropologist Domenica Macdonald, who once filched a Spode teacup from Antonia Collie, continues to run into her former neighbor, embarrassing moments that are only heightened by Antonia's new flatmate, Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, who never met a situation she couldn't dampen with a flat aphorism. Domenica's husband, portrait painter Angus Lordie, descends into a frighteningly believable bureaucratic morass when he seeks to bury the dead cat he's found. Spoiler alert: Most of these complications work out fine, and as for the ones that don't, there's always next year. Fragrant, refreshing, and soothing as a cup of--well, you know what.

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October 14, 2019
In Smith’s meandering 13th 44 Scotland Street novel (after 2017’s A Time of Love and Tartan), the latest personal developments among the residents of the Edinburgh street will strike many as ho-hum: a child’s acquisition of a pet dog, a battle with a bureaucracy over disposing of a dead animal, and a coffee shop owner’s fears for her business’s future. Cat lovers will be taken aback by an anthropomorphized projection of the life of a dead feline, which, in order to make a pseudo-profound point about its finder’s worldview, suggests that the cat couldn’t have had an attachment to anything or anyone beyond its own life. Others may find odd one character’s attitude that only men can have a sentimental attachment to old clothing. Readers will struggle to care about the child and the coffee shop owner and how their personal stories play out. The author’s usual charm and humor aren’t enough to redeem a tale without a dominant or memorable story line. Fans of Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective series will be disappointed. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency.

Starred review from November 1, 2019
The 44 Scotland Street series is something of a high-wire act, a cross between soap opera and serialized novel. It began in 2004 when McCall Smith introduced, in sketches in the The Scotsman newspaper, a handful of characters living in an upper-middle-class apartment building in Edinburgh. The action has proceeded at a reflection-filled, leisurely pace but with sudden lurches, advances, and reversals. Almost from the outset, a little boy, Bertie, now seven, the victim of a mother who sees him more as a project than a child, has been the beating heart of the series. In this thirteenth installment, Bertie has been largely freed from his domineering mother, a development that readers who have seen the evil influence of that mother will welcome. New readers, though, may be confused by the way some plot threads are woven and then all but abandoned. And even with the breakneck pace of serialization, there should have been some extra proofing to catch errors (like identifying the Slough of Despond as appearing in Dante, rather than Bunyan). Still, especially for continuing readers, a new Scotland Street will always be a cause for rejoicing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2019

There are changes afoot for Bertie and his family and friends in this next in the popular series by the redoubtable McCall Smith. Bertie is aging, if gracefully, and Irene is having her dramas, but Edinburgh keeps on keeping on. In a handy paperback original format and moving to a fall publication (think holidays).

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