Amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who also uses her training to solve unusual mysteries. Isabel is Editor of the Review of Applied Ethics
- which addresses such questions as Truth telling in sexual relationships
- & she also hosts The Sunday Philosophy Club at her house in Edinburgh. Behind the citys Georgian facades its moral compasses are spinning with greed dishonesty & murderous intent. Instinct tells Isabel that the young man who tumbled to his death in front of her eyes at a concert in the Usher Hall didnt fall. He was pushed. With Isabel Dalhousie Alexander Mc Call Smith introduces a new & pneumatic female sleuth to tackle murder mayhem
- & the mysteries of life. As her hero WH Auden maintained classic detective fiction stems from a desire for an uncorrupted Eden which the detective as an agent of God can return to us. But then Isabel being a philosopher has a thing or two to say about God as well.