Showing results by narrator "Hilary Neville" in All Categories

The story revolves around the comings and goings at No. 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in Edinburgh. Immediately recognisable are the Edinburgh chartered surveyor, stalwart of the Conservative Association, who dreams of membership of Scotland's most exclusive golf club. We have the pushy Stockbridge mother, and her prodigiously talented five-year-old son, who is making good progress with the saxophone and with his Italian.

Amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who uses her training to solve unusual mysteries. She edits the Review of Applied Ethics and hosts The Sunday Philosophy Club at her house in Edinburgh. Behind the city's Georgian facades its moral compasses are spinning with greed, dishonesty and murderous intent. Instinct tells Isabel that the young man who tumbled to his death in front of her eyes at a concert didn't fall. He was pushed.

January 1992. A baby girl is left alone for a moment. Long enough for a mother to dash into a shop. Long enough for a child to be taken. Thirteen years later, solicitor Robert Knight's stepdaughter wins a place at a prestigious London school for the gifted. The only puzzle is his wife Erin's reaction. Why is she so reluctant to let Ruby go? Doesn't she want what's best for her? As Erin grows more evasive, Robert can't help but feel she has something to hide and when he stumbles on mysterious letters, he discovers she has been lying to him. 

Wayward daughters. Missing Husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you've got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective. Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she's got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J.L.B. Maketoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

With his characteristic warmth, inventiveness and brilliant wit, Alexander McCall Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street, the Edinburgh townhouse. Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth and balanced good sense against his insufferable mother and her crony, the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn, going as far as to make a short-lived bid for freedom on a trip to Paris with the Edinburgh youth orchestra.

Recently married to Charles, Sarah is furnishing a cottage in Scotland and starting on a life in sharp contrast to their wartime experiences. Their full entrance into village life is helped by Sarah's delightful grandparents, who have given them the land on which they have built their cottage.

In Espresso Tales, Alexander McCall Smith returns home to Edinburgh and the glorious cast of his own tales of the city, the residents of 44 Scotland Street, with a new set of challenges for each one of them. Bruce, the intolerably vain and perpetually deluded ex-surveyor, is about to embark on a new career as a wine merchant, while his long-suffering flatmate Pat MacGregor, set up by matchmaking Domenica Macdonald, finds herself invited to a nudist picnic in Moray Place in the pursuit of true love.

Two's company, but three's a calamity.... Two's Company is a funny, romantic novel from best-selling Jill Mansell, author of The One You Really Want and Three Amazing Things About You. Jack and Cass Mandeville are a dream couple, ridiculously happy together and successful to boot - Jack as a journalist and Cass with her own hugely popular radio show.

Mma Ramotswe, daughter of the late Obed Ramotswe, is now the announced fiancée of Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. It is a fine match; she is the founder and owner of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and he is the proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. But Precious Ramotswe is not as happy as she should be under the circumstances. The Detective Agency is struggling with its finances and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni is unusually low and neglecting his garage.

Meet the one and only Precious Ramotswe - the engaging and sassy owner of Botswana's only detective agency. Mma Ramotswe is facing a new challenge: resolving a mother's pain for her son who is long lost on the African plains. Mma's own impending marriage to the most gentlemanly of men, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, the promotion of her secretary to the dizzy heights of assistant detective, and the arrival of new members to the Matekoni family.

Isabel Dalhousie is a new mother and a connoisseur of philosophy; she'd rather not be a sleuth. But when a chance conversation at a dinner party draws Isabel into the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined, she cannot ignore what may be a miscarriage of justice. Because for Isabel ethics are not theoretical at all, but an everyday matter of life and death.

On a beautiful spring day, Julia Harburn sat on a seat in Kensington Gardens enjoying the sunshine. She was wearing a white frock and a large straw hat with a sapphire-blue ribbon which exactly matched her eyes - a strange coincidence, as it turned out, for the blue sapphire was to have a far-reaching influence upon her life. So far, her life had been somewhat dull and circumscribed; but quite suddenly her horizons were enlarged. She began to make new friends.

Precious Ramotswe is continuing to run her detective agency from the garage of her fiancé, Mr J. L. B. Matakoni. Plans for their wedding need to be made - but when, if ever, will they wed? Intriguing cases present themselves and Mma Ramotswe juggles new clients with her usual formidable talent. However, when her first-class assistant Mma Makutsi decides to expand the agency by opening a much-needed typing school for men, things become complicated.

Blue Shoes and Happiness brings more adventures for Precious Ramotswe and her fine assistant Mma Makutsi. They encounter a cobra in the office, complaints of faulty blood-pressure readings at the medical clinic, a superstitious group of farm workers, and it looks like Aunty Emang, advice columnist in the local newspaper, may not be what she seems.

Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of "traditional build", is well-known to millions across the world through the best-selling No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. She is finally married to Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, and the Agency is very busy, but she cannot ignore a plea which is made to her by a woman with a tale of particular misfortune.

Mma Ramotswe is still engaged to Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni and wonders when a day for the wedding will be named. But she is anxious to avoid putting too much pressure on her fiancé, for indeed he has other things on his mind - notably a frightening request from the pushy matron of the Orphan Farm. Mma Ramotswe herself has weighty matters to address. She has been approached by a wealthy lady and asked to check up on several suitors. Are these men just interested in her money?

Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and amateur solver of other people's problems, meets an old foe, Minty Auchterlonie, at a birthday party attended by their young children. Ambitious Minty, now the head of a small investment bank, is in trouble with her shareholders. Isabel becomes involved, and is drawn into a murky world of financial concealment.

Isabel Dalhousie, Edinburgh philosopher and curious observer of the behaviour of her fellow man, is approached by a friend at a local boarding school that is planning to appoint a new headmaster; an anonymous letter has arrived suggesting that one of the shortlisted candidates has a compromising past. But which one is it? Isabel is once again drawn into an investigation, and finds herself exploring dilemmas of human weakness and forgiveness.

For philosophically minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And with the arrival of baby Charlie, not to mention a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, 14 years her junior, Isabel enters deeper and rougher waters.

Isabel's niece Cat is still worshipped by the young musician, Jamie, but Cat has a new and unsuitable love-interest. Meanwhile Isabel's Texan cousins have arrived in Edinburgh and are provoking a quite separate set of dilemmas. In between these events and complications, Edinburgh life continues, calmly sailed through by Isabel, her housekeeper, Grace, and, of course, that cautious resident of Isabel's garden, brother Fox. His alone is the uncomplicated existence.