The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday Alexander McCall Smith

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

Author: Alexander McCall Smith

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publication Date: 23 September, 2008

ISBN: 9780375425134

Pages: 256

Subjects: Mystery

Available as: Trade Cloth, 978-0-375-42513-4 Trade Paper, 978-0-307-38707-3 Trade Paper, 978-0-7393-2812-5 Audio Recording Downloadable, 978-1-4356-7243-7

Description:

In the fabulous new installment in the best-selling adventures of Isabel Dalhousie, Isabel is asked to help a doctor who has been disgraced by allegations of scientific fraud concerning a newly marketed drug. Our ever-curious moral philosopher finds her interest piqued. Would a doctor with a stellar reputation make such a simple but grave mistake? If not, what explains the tragic accident that resulted in the death of a patient? Clearly, an investigation is in order, especially since a man's reputation is in jeopardy. Could he be the victim of someone else's mistake? Or perhaps he has been willfully deceived by a pharmaceutical company with a great deal to gain. Not every problem prompts an investigation (take, for example, her ongoing struggle with her housekeeper, Grace, over the care of Isabel's infant son, Charlie), but, as we've seen, whatever the case, whatever the solution, Isabel's combination of spirit, smarts, empathy, and unabashed nosiness guarantees a delightful adventure. From the Hardcover edition.

PW Publishers Weekly

Review Source: Publishers Weekly

Review Date: 0--

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. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.