Still annoying Patsy, Olive make Bertie's life seem unbearable. Greg and Ed offer Bruce a deal that is too good to be true. But underneath it all is a conscience that brings Bruce to his senses. A big surprise to all readers. is still being plagued by his classmate Olive, who's constantly make spiteful, cutting remarks and insisting that Bertie will have to marry her. The small fact this book was originally serialised and a chapter was realised each week in an Edinburgh newspaper.

Olive insists Bertie agreed to marry her when they're twenty (he didn't), and Olive now claims to be looking at venues, searching for a band, tasting wedding cakes, etc., much to Bertie's horror. Meanwhile, Angus Lordie expresses his appreciation of the bespoke Lobb brogues he inherited from his father, while Domenica comments on Belgian indoor shoes and the fashion for knee-ripped jeans and low-slung trousers that expose underwear. She bemoans how independent privately-funded scholars suffer the condescension of academics, and Angus muses on the alter-ego endowed on him by the bureaucracy. Matthew, Elsbeth, the triplets, and Au-Pair James still sorting through their roles in life and maybe learning a bit about gratitude. Gilles Deleuze, when younger and before he was plunged into the terminal nightmare of COPD, juxtaposed the traditional with the zanily postmodernist very handily indeed, though his road was Woke. Nosy, aphorism-spouting Italian nun, Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, has been rapidly climbing the Edinburgh social ladder since she moved to town.Personally, I think maybe one of his retired academic legal cronies one day stared him in the eye over a few pints of dark brown Guinness, an’ muttered, “Aye, Sandy me lad, yer rich an’ famous - so why not now GET WI’ THE TIMES? Bertie arrives at Irene's Aberdeen apartment, where his room is tiny, dark and cold. Bertie is also enrolled in an Aberdeen school, where he can't understand the Scots language used by his classmates. To top it off, Bertie is once again scheduled for psychoanalysis. Bertie confides his unhappy situation to his best friend in Edinburgh, Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, and the rest is (hilarious) history. Our visit with these quirky people is once more interrupted by discussing the plans and rivalries of a nudist club. This does not seem relevant since it has no connection to any of our Scotland Street friends' lives. Pat is accepted as a tenant at 44 Scotland Street, where she meets her fellow residents: Bruce, a narcissistic surveyor with whom she somewhat reluctantly falls in love; Domenica MacDonald, an opinionated but fascinating middle-aged widow who is an anthropologist; and Angus, a portrait painter and owner of Cyril, the dog with a fetish for ankles.

Big Lou (I crave bacon rolls!) and Fat Bob's new relationship is delightfully open and honest. Young Bertie's friends are up to their usual antics (and tell poor Bertie how dreadfully cold Aberdeen is, way up "north with its polar bears). Stuart, his father, adores his son and is worried about allowing Bertie to live with his out-of-town (and out-of-life) mother for three months. Bertie's grandparents have their own views. There are vignettes of other characters, too. When Irene turns up at the Scotland Street flat without advance notice, readers will be cheering Nicola on as she handles the unwelcome arrival, but that doesn’t go quite how either woman expects; Bertie is booked into summer-camp, and hopes he will be allowed a penknife; Elspeth lies to Matthew, and they both spend quite some time agonising over it. While Bertie is precocious (a neighbor finds him reading a book on the life of Kierkegaard), he is sweet-tempered and just wants to be a normal boy. His best friend is Ranald Braveheart Macpherson. He wants to be a Boy Scout, but that group is anathema to his termagant, ultra-leftist, ultra feminist mother Irene. In past books, Irene has painted Bertie’s room pink, had him wear pink pants, attend yoga sessions, learn Italian, play the saxophone, and undergo psychotherapy for no other reason than Bertie is a normal little boy for all his intelligence. (BTW, Irene had an sexual encounter with said psychotherapist during a session at a flotation tank. This resulted in the birth o AMS lives in Edinburgh and a friend once told me I would love it if I ever went there. I hope I get to see it one day, but just in case I don't, I feel I have been there because Edinburgh almost becomes a character in this series.When Pat accepts her narcissistic ex-boyfriend Bruce’s invitation for coffee, she has no idea of the complications in her romantic and professional life that will follow. Meanwhile, Matthew, her boss at the art gallery, attracts the attention of the police after a misunderstanding at the local bookstore. The ever-arrogant Bruce Anderson overestimates his skill at cryptic crosswords, and is offered a role in a morally questionable real estate scheme by a former schoolmate. When by chance he learns who the buyer is, he faces a moral dilemma. It all becomes moot when nature interferes in a very dramatic way. From social media to the finer points of human behavior, this episode of Alexander McCall Smith’s popular 44 Scotland Street series provides an entertaining commentary on a small corner of modern life in Edinburgh where, contrary to received wisdom, the sun nearly always shines.

I love this kind of ensemble piece. The chapters are short and change focus among the residents of the building at 44 Scotland Street. Not much happens, and everything happens: love found, lost and found again, awkward encounters, a hidden masterpiece, a secret tunnel, dinner with the boss (and boss’s wife and daughter), rebellion, great neighbors (and bad ones), a precocious child, a new job and therapy sessions. Through it all the reader is treated to the author’s witty observations on this microcosm of Edinburgh society. Some of the storylines in this particular instalment were a little jarring. Still, at least there was no Nudist association or Duke of Johannesburg storyline. James has something else on his mind as well. James has been calling and texting his eccentric uncle, the Duke of Johannesburg, but the duke hasn't responded. So James and Matthew take steps to see what's up with the duke.Once again, Bruce, the supreme narcissist and serial seducer, is engaged in his conceited and hurtful behaviour. Does he succeed this time and escape his karma?