Isabel Dalhousie helps a new friend discover the identity of her father. But Isabel also manages to find time for her own concerns: her young son, Charlie, already walking and talking; her housekeeper, Grace, whose spiritualist has lately been doubling as a financial adviser; her niece Cat's latest relationship; and the pressing question of when and how Isabel and Jamie should finally get married.

After a patient dies accidentally, an impeccably credentialed doctor is accused of fraudulent involvement with a new drug. Isabel Dalhousie launches an investigation, concerned that a good man's reputation will be ruined. Could the doctor be taking the fall for someone else's mistake? Or did a nefarious pharmaceutical company put its lofty ambitions ahead of safety?

Amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who also uses her training to solve unusual mysteries. Isabel is Editor of the Review of Applied Ethics - which addresses such questions as 'Truth telling in sexual relationships' - and she also hosts The Sunday Philosophers' Club at her house in Edinburgh. In this first book in McCall Smith's new series Isabel investigates how a yong man caould have fallen to his death from the top balcony of the Usher...

Encountering high-flying financier Minty Auchterlonie while attending a birthday party, Isabel learns of Minty's complicated monetary troubles and wonders if the ambitious woman is perpetuating a fraud.

"Isabel becomes involved in a delicate paternity case in the twelfth installment of the beloved Isabel Dalhousie Series. Isabel finds herself befriended by Patricia, a single mother whose son, Basil, goes to school with Isabel's son. Isabel discovers that Basil is the product of an affair Patricia had with a well-known Edinburgh organist, also named Basil, who was, rumor has it, initially reluctant to contribute financially to the child's upkeep....

"The ever-delightful, insatiably curious Edinburgh philosopher and amateur sleuth returns to take on a case unlike any she's had before--this one with paranormal implications--in the tenth installment of this beloved author's consistently best-selling series. From a small town outside Edinburgh comes the news that a young boy has been recounting vivid recollections of a past life: a perfect description of an island off the coast of Scotland which...