The Careful Use of Compliments, Alexander McCall Smith

The Careful Use of Compliments
by Alexander McCall Smith

This book is the fourth in the Isabel Dalhousie mystery series. Like all other Alexander McCall Smith books, this book is gentle, slow (sometimes too slow) and comfortable. Smith poses problems for the heroine to address, and we watch as he then addresses those problems through his heroine.

In the previous book, The Right Attitude to Rain, Isabel fell in love with Jamie, a younger man who had been the lover of Isabel's niece, Cat, who had broken off her relationship with him. In that story, Isabel found herself pregnant, surprisingly, but joyfully.

In this fourth novel, little Charlie has been born, and Isabel's relationship with Cat has become strained because of Cat's emotional problems with Isabel's relationship with Jamie. Even though Cat no longer wants to have a relationship with Jamie herself, she is deeply troubled that her aunt, Isabel, now has a relationship with Jamie, and they now have a son, Charlie. Much of the book concerns Isabel's difficulties in dealing with Cat.

Isabel continues to live in a large old house in Edinburgh, Scotland, and she continues to be the editor of "The Journal of Applied Ethics", a profession that is also her hobby, her vocation. Isobel is by nature a moral philosopher, who loves the thought of philosophy and ethics. Her work as editor of the journal is deeply personal, and she loves it even though the job pays only a pittance.

However, in this book, Isabel is faced with a problem that causes her deep personal distress -- she is shocked to receive a letter informing her that she is being replaced as editor of the Journal. She learns that she has is the victim of a coup by someone else who wants to become editor, and his protege who is on the Journal's Editorial Board. In the end, Isabel solves this problem through a direct use of the power of wealth. Because of her inheritance, she is independently wealthy, and she simply buys the Journal, ousting both the Editorial Board member and the new editor.

Isabel is also very interested in art, especially the work of one Scottish landscape painter who has been dead for several years, killed in a boating accident off the Scottish island of Jura. She learns that first one painting of this artist and then a second suddenly appear for auction. Because of certain inconsistencies between these paintings and his previous works, she becomes suspicious that perhaps the paintings are fraudulent and conducts an investigation. As in all Alexander McCall Smith novels, his heroine eventually discovers the truth through careful thought and some serendipitous and timely events, and the story ends happily.

Much of this book, like all Alexander McCall Smith novels, concerns the thoughts of the protagonist. Much of this story is Isabel's thoughts -- about Cat, about her deep emotional need to be editor of the Journal, and about her tracking down the answer to the recent paintings at auction. While some of the book concerns her thoughts about her deep love for Jamie and certain conflicts with him, little of the book concerns her thoughts about little Charlie. Thus her life has not changed completely with Charlie's birth; while she does think of him, she clearly is not the mothering kind. Isabel is a philosopher; her housekeeper, Grace, is charged with keeping little Charlie.