The Sunday Philosophy Club
Jul. 23rd, 2020 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith is the first in a 'cosy crime' series by the author of the probably better know No 1 Ladies Detective Agency - but the first book of his I have read. The main character is Isabel Dalhousie, who edits a philosophy journal and apparently also gets involved in murder investigations. Well, sort of... Here, she witnesses the death of a young man who falls from the upper balcony at the theatre, and Isabel becomes obsessed with finding out how it happened. But she doesn't exactly investigate - it's more as if she stumbles across random connections, makes wild assumptions about people and events, and then discovers by pure coincidence that the truth is something completely different.
She also thinks about philosophy a lot, hangs out with her niece's ex-boyfriend, and sticks her nose into her niece's continuing love life.
I started out liking Isabel quite a lot, but grew less attached as the novel went on, and she revealed unfortunate attitudes to relationships and an inability to move on from her own distant and unfortunate romantic past. I did like a lot of the secondary characters, but not enough to get past the lack of a cohesive throughline to the plot, and Isabel's own shortcomings, both as a detective and more generally.
The story also felt very disconnected from any particular time. I gathered from some references to dates that it takes place at the time of the book's publication - 2004 - but there was so little mention of technology and Isabel's attitudes and actions seemed so old-fashioned, that it was difficult to imagine it in a modern setting.
So, not for me - though there are now twelve books in the series, so they must have a fair few fans somewhere!
She also thinks about philosophy a lot, hangs out with her niece's ex-boyfriend, and sticks her nose into her niece's continuing love life.
I started out liking Isabel quite a lot, but grew less attached as the novel went on, and she revealed unfortunate attitudes to relationships and an inability to move on from her own distant and unfortunate romantic past. I did like a lot of the secondary characters, but not enough to get past the lack of a cohesive throughline to the plot, and Isabel's own shortcomings, both as a detective and more generally.
The story also felt very disconnected from any particular time. I gathered from some references to dates that it takes place at the time of the book's publication - 2004 - but there was so little mention of technology and Isabel's attitudes and actions seemed so old-fashioned, that it was difficult to imagine it in a modern setting.
So, not for me - though there are now twelve books in the series, so they must have a fair few fans somewhere!
