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Review title: Did Mr McCall Smith have an urgent bill to pay?
Product review: I've only just found out this was written as a newspaper serial. It now makes some sense. My initial impression was that it was dashed off to pay for a new sofa/yacht/Renoir for Mr McCall Smith, who had a weekend spare to knock it out. Knowing it's a newspaper serial it's more likely he cranked out each day's instalment while he had his morning coffee/tea/whatever.A handful of interesting, but only two-and-a-bit dimensional, characters do stuff. Some of this stuff has consequences - which you will predict with uncanny accuracy.There are some nicely-drawn scenes, and you get a slight sense of living in Edinburgh (well, part of Edinburgh). But basically sod-all of any interest occurs. And then it just stops.This is the first book I've read of his - having heard people rave about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I don't really feel like reading any more.
