With his characteristic warmth inventiveness & brilliant wit Alexander Mc Call Smith gives us more of the gloriously entertaining comings & goings at 44 Scotland Street the Edinburgh townhouse. Six-year-old prodigy Bertie perseveres in his heroic struggle for truth & balanced good sense against his insufferable mother & her crony the psychotherapist Dr Fairbairn. Domenica sets off on an anthropological odyssey with pirates in the Malacca Straits while Pat attracts several handsome admirers including a toothsome suitor named Wolf. & Big Lou eternal source of coffee & good advice to her friends has love heartbreak & erstwhile boyfriend Eddies misdemeanours on her own mind.