The Sunday Philosophy Club : An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery (Random House Large Print)

Rating:
Summary: I was really looking forweard to this...
Review: ...but I was disappointed. Smith's rustic African philosophy worked well, for a while anyway, but I find that he did not translate well to the urbane setting of Edinburgh. This book took forever to get going, and the slow pace was irritating. Far too much philosophy and other introspection. Finally we get to some sleuthing, but this is, alas, not satisfying at all. Perhaps Smith will be able to get things into gear a little more quickly in the next book in this series, but I will not purchase it if it gets the same kind of reviews that Philosophy Club has been getting.

Rating:
Summary: I was really looking forweard to this...
Review: ...but I was disappointed. Smith's rustic African philosophy worked well, for a while anyway, but I find that he did not translate well to the urbane setting of Edingurgh. This book took forever to get going, and the slow pace was irritating. Far too much philosophy and other introspection. Finally we get to some sleuthing, but this is, alas, not satisfying at all. Perhaps Smith will be able to get things into gear a little more quickly in the next book in this series, but I will not purchase it if it gets the same kind of reviews that Philosophy Club has been getting.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: I had to force myself to finish this book. The only reason I did was it was a gift and I didn't want to admit I hadn't read all of it.

There just seemed to be no point to Isabel's "investigation" of the young man's death. Going to see his flatmates, she just came off as a nosy spinster looking for gossip.



Rating:
Summary: Lacks Story-Telling Magic
Review: I was dismayed with this new series because first and foremost, it lacked the story-telling magic of the Botswana stories. It lacked that magic because the heroine here, Isabel Dalhousie, is a mouse compared to the lionness of Precious Ramotswe. Isabel is a mouse because she is mired in philosophical hair-splitting. She can't figure out that it is moral and good to warn her niece against marriage to a philanderer, and only does so against her rational judgment, in a moment of instinctual truth-telling. Mma Ramotswe is a lionness because she is imbued with moral purpose. She may be undecided at times how to solve an issue, but she has no doubt where right and wrong lie, and who is right and who is wrong. Isabel may be editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, but she flounders in a sea of obfuscatory rhetoric. Mma Ramotswe cuts right to the chase. She lives ethics, she takes in and nurtures orphans, she is interested in her neighbors and her community, she has a kind word and a greeting for all who cross her path. Hers are the ethics that are truly applied. Isabel by contrast leads a cold, self-centered life. Aside from intellectual pursuits, her only personal interest in life is her niece, an adult young woman who is quite self sufficient and needs only a nudge in the direction of the right man. While Isabel spends long paragraphs ruminating over the finer points of Kantian philosophy, her personal life is unpeopled, with only a few, carefully edited companions allowed entrance. Her encounters are coincidence which serve to move the mystery, such as it is, forward, though at a sodden pace. The author strews red herrings in the path of reader and detective, but when the guilty party is revealed, the moment is almost tossed away. The result is a novel that feels both too long and too quickly wrapped up.

Perhaps the malaise that seems to hang over this book lies in its setting, a stodgy Edinburgh (I hope we all know it's pronounced Ehdinburrah), which seems gray and dull compared to Gaborone, depicted as a veritable African paradise (though with a few serpents swiftly dispatched by Mma Ramotswe's clever strategems and homespun wisdom). By contrast, the chicanery in Edinburgh is of a different nature, financially sophisticated, untraceable, unprovable. Perhaps the author's feelings about Scotland compared to Botswana, the emotional sunlight that permeates the latter and the intellectual chill the former, has influenced the tone and tenor of this most unsatisfying novel.

Rating:
Summary: Murder and everyday philosophy open new series
Review: On the first page of this new series opener Isabel Dalhousie witnesses a young man fall to his death from the upper seats of an Edinburgh concert hall. Cultured, attractive, early 40s, and comfortably well off, Isabel has a nice life. True, she worries about her niece's cad of a boyfriend, but since she still carries a torch for a handsome cad of her own, she understands the chemistry. But, having met the eye of the dead boy as he fell, Isabel feels a certain responsibility to understand his death, be it accident, murder or suicide.


The Sunday Philosophy Club never actually meets during the course of the book, but Isabel, editor of "The Review of Applied Ethics," has a whimsically philosophical turn of mind, which she applies neatly to everyday life as well as questions of curiosity, obligation, and murder.

As with Smith's popular series, "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency," the mystery provides a focal point for the narrative, but is secondary to the interplay of character, dialogue, and motivation. Secondary characters, from the niece's spurned ex-boyfriend, a too-nice guy who's a favorite of Isabel's, to Grace, Isabel's blunt and earthy housekeeper, are well-drawn. The philosophical/ethical bent, while not in the least taxing, is humorous and stimulating, and Isabel is a thoroughly delightful, self-possessed, and charmingly flawed heroine.

Rating:
Summary: The different style shows McCall Smith's genius
Review: The different style of this wonderful mystery shows McCall Smith's true genius - he is able to write different series (this one, the Irregular Verbs and the Botswana novels) in completely different voices. I love all his many books, but I know some, for example, who LOVE this book but find the other 2 series slightly lightweight. Clearly from the reviews, some people are, alas, feeling the other way around. But why can't a writer as good and funny as McCall Smith write novels in different literary genres? I think he can, and this wonderful, thoughtful, evocative and reflective novel is proof positive of just that. Read this book and find out for yourself! Christopher Catherwood, author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ (Carroll and Graf, 2004)

Rating:
Summary: A Leap into Disappointment
Review: This book hooked me with its opening scene, but then, like the young man seen on page one, it went downhill rapidly. Although I enjoyed the plots in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, its charming leading lady, and its beautifully described setting in Botswana, none of these qualities is present here. This book is thin on plot and thick on pretense, chatter, and philosophical and moral ponderings that are sometimes downright fatuous and boring. I skipped much of those passages and jumped to the dialog and plot, which meant I read this pretty quickly without missing much. I was sorry to be disappointed with this work but I don't think I'll be reading book 2 of the series any time soon. The leading lady here is just a bore.

Rating:
Summary: Listen to This!
Review: This book was terrific on tape; one of the few that I have enjoyed more than just reading the book. I plan to keep this instead of turning it over to my used book store. Very entertaining!

Rating:
Summary: Falls way short of No. 1 series
Review: When she sees a young man plunge to his death after an orchastra concert, Isabel Dalhousie wonders whether she should get involved. It just seems so unlikely that the fall was an accident, and as editor of an Applied Ethics journal, doesn't Isabel have a philosophical duty to investigate when she knows something--and feels a connection? Of course, she can only investigate when she isn't busy trying to prevent her favorite niece from making a terrible mistake and marrying the wrong guy. Gradually, Isabel becomes more and more obsessed with these two challenges, finding more and more reasons why someone might have wanted to push poor Mark to his death.

Author Alexander McCall Smith gained huge popularity with his No. 1 Ladies' Detective series. The Isabel Dalhousie series, of which this is the first, is set in Scotland rather than Africa, but includes investigation of tribal customs almost as strange as those of Africa. Unfortunately, I simply did not find either the characters or the mystery to be compelling.

Isabel Dalhousie, unlike Mme Ramotswe, does not have to work and has her entire day free to manage other people's business and feel smug and superior to mere working people. Her efforts into 'applied ethics' might be important but certainly seem trivial from the small amount of information Smith chooses to share. Her favorite niece is somewhat less annoying than Isabel but serves mainly as a foil to Isabel's intelligence and perceptiveness.

Sleuths, whether amateur, police, or private, do have a tendency to make false accusations. Still, I would have thought that a practitioner of 'applied ethics' would have just a bit more of a sense of guilt over implying that innocent people committed murder. It didn't help that Isabel's involvement was largely unmotivated, lacking either a ticking clock or any sense of personal disaster that might occur if the true criminal were not tracked down.

From a mystery perspective, THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB has a huge hole in it--Isabel would never have gotten anywhere in her case without receiving one important clue--a clue that was simply unmotivated and made no sense from the mystery perspective.

I'm a fan of Smith's fairy-tale like No. 1 Ladies Detective series, but Isabel Dalhousie is about as much fun as reading a journal of applied ethics.

Rating:
Summary: A crashing disappointment
Review: While I did not expect the likes of Mma Ramotswe to be "transported" to Scotland, I did expect the author to present us with a new series marked by his easy charm and wisdom. The plot begins with the witnessing of a death, and then veers off course at great length. The constant weighing of the ethics by Isabel in every aspect of her very uninteresting existence (whether or not to pursue the events of the death; whether or not to confront her niece about a boyfriend's suspected infidelty; whether or not to publish a terribly dry and uninteresting article in an ethics journal; whether or not to take the bus or walk to the shops) drags the book down. The only bright spot is the opinionated housekeeper. Perhaps the author could build a series around her!

Luckily, the title "club" never appears. If it did, I fear the police would be called in - I would have been bored to death!