The Charming Quirks of Others by Alexander McCall Smith (Isabel Dalhousie #7)

This Isabel Dalhousie novel was still charming and thoughtful, just not as gripping as some of the others. Isabel is asked to vet three candidates for the headship of a nearby boarding school, feeling obliged she takes it on and finds the affair complicated by one of them being her neice Cat's new boyfriend. Juggling life with baby Charlie, partner Jamie, plans for weddings, work for the Review of Applied Ethics and the machinations of her nemesis Christopher Dove, this is a low key reflection on the subject of family, and of the place of gossip in a small community which Edinburgh, despite it's status as a city, is beneath the surface. Deftly written.

The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith (Isabel Dalhousie #4)

When Isabel Dalhousie receives an auction catalogue she spots a painting by an author that she has another painting by, and who has been dead for 10 years. Whilst dealing with the emotional fallout from learning she has been ousted as editor of the Journal of Applied Ethics, and getting used to life with a new baby, she bids for the painting. She is outbid, but then approached by the winning bidder and begins to wonder about the painting and its artist. On the one hand, this is the best plot of an Isabel Dalhousie story so far, I love the gentle mystery about a painting, that a possible forgery can be a window into something far sadder and more humane. However, Isabel's new baby son Charlie is unnaturally good, I don't remember new motherhood ever being as benign, but then maybe she is just lucky!