Interference guaranteed

by Alexander McCall Smith

Little, Brown, 277pp, 16.99

FRIENDS, LOVERS, Chocolate is the second of Alexander McCall Smith's novels about Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and well-to-do Edinburgh lady with a taste for investigation or, as you might prefer to put it, poking her nose into other people's business. In the previous novel she had the excuse of having witnessed a death which the police accepted as accident or suicide, but which she believed was murder. She made for most of the book rather a hash of her amateur detective work; necessarily so in order to keep the story going.

This novel too has an investigation at its centre, though for most of the narrative it's uncertain whether any crime has indeed been committed. To be fair to Miss Dalhousie - not, I have to confess, something that comes easily to me - the investigation is this time rather tossed into her lap.

While looking after her niece Cat's delicatessen for a few days, she falls into conversation with one of the customers as he eats his modest lunch of sardines and salad. He explains that he is on a restricted diet because he has recently been the recipient of a transplanted heart. Later he tells her he has been having a recurrent strange and unsettling experience.

A strong-featured face appears to him, and, as it does so, he feels an overwhelming sadness. He is sure this has something to do with the new heart, and that it is a vision that belongs to the donor. Could it be evidence of the existence of "cellular memory"? He does not know who the donor was. Isabel, interested, decides this is the first thing to be discovered. She is convinced that her new friend Ian's survival may be at stake.

As in the previous novel she gets herself into embarrassing situations by the alacrity with which she jumps to conclusions. Surely, one thinks, a philosopher might be more cautious and more sceptical?

She has of course other equally pressing concerns. There is the question of her relationship with young Jamie, the beautiful musician, who is himself still carrying a torch for Cat. (When he has a short-lived affair with a married woman, Isabel's jealousy leads her to behave badly.) Then there is an attractive Italian, a man of her own age called Tomasso.

He too fancies Cat, but is prepared to indulge in a flirtation with Isabel and perhaps also with a young waiter. He seems, however, superfluous to the novel; perhaps his significance will appear in the next book in the series. Isabel also attends a spiritualist seance with her housekeeper, Grace, who fancies a widower in the congregation but may have a rival in the medium herself. It's all go in South Edinburgh.

Alexander McCall Smith writes as ever with a seductive ease of manner. He tells his story indeed as if he were recounting it from a leather armchair in a well-stocked library while sharing a bottle of good wine with his listener. The charm is beguiling, almost concealing the fact that McCall Smith is a moralist with a very clear idea of how we should, and should not, behave.

If I have to confess that I am not entirely conquered by the charm, this is because I am unsure just how he views his heroine and expects his readers to see her. I have the suspicion that he admires and approves of her more than I do; that where I see a rather tiresome woman meddling incompetently with matters that are no concern of hers, he would regard her as a lady of high principles and moral integrity, conscious of her duty towards others and striving to apply ethical principles to the problems presented to her. This may simply go to show that McCall Smith is a far better man than I am.