“I love this city, and always shall. I write about it. I dream about it. I walk its streets and see something new each day – traces of faded lettering on the stone, still legible, but just; some facade...

The key to contentment in the Scottish climate is the right attitude to rain – just as in life the key to happiness lies in making the best of what you have. Bruised in love by her faithless Irish...

Isabel Dalhousie thinks often of friends, sometimes of lovers, and on occasion of chocolate. As an Edinburgh philosopher she is certain of where she stands. She can review a book called In Praise of Sin with panache and conviction,...

When writer Paul Stewart heads to the idyllic Italian town of Montalcino to finish his already late book, it seems like the perfect escape from stressful city life. Upon landing, however, things quickly take a turn for the worse...

“There is no problem so great it cannot be solved by a cup of bush tea.” The prolific Alexander McCall Smith is the undisputed king of cosy crime, the antithesis of the much-touted Tartan Noir movement. His Precious Ramotswe...

THE NO.1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY published in 1998, introduced the world to the one and only Precious Ramotswe, the engaging and sassy owner of Botswana’s only detective agency. TEARS OF THE GIRAFFE took us further into this world, and...

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are called to a safari lodge in Botswana’s Okavango Delta to carry out a delicate mission on behalf of a former guest. The Okavango makes Precious appreciate once again the beauty of her homeland:...

First in the series. The stories are centred around the residents of a house in Edinburgh, and offer slices of life through the different characters who live there and whose lives overlap. (A note in the introduction that this...

Even down to its well-set Georgian townhouses, Edinburgh is a hymn to measure and harmony. But on Scotland Street, domestic accord is in short supply. Matthew and Elspeth welcome three new arrivals, though the joys of multiple parenthood are...

Another novel in the series of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, novels set in Botswana. Now that she is finally and happily married to her long-term suitor Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies Detective...