44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [0]
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praise for
A L E X A N D E R M c C A L L S M I T H
“Utterly enchanting. . . . It is impossible to come away from an Alexander McCall Smith ‘mystery’ novel without a smile on the lips and warm fuzzies in the heart.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“McCall Smith’s generous writing and dry humor, his gentleness and humanity, and his ability to evoke a place and a set of characters without caricature or condescension have endeared his books . . . to readers.”
— The New York Times
“Pure joy. . . . The voice, the setting, the stories, the mysteries of human nature. . . . [McCall Smith’s] writing is accessible and the prose is beautiful.”
—Amy Tan
“Mr. Smith, a fine writer, paints his hometown of Edinburgh as indelibly as he captures the sunniness of Africa. We can almost feel the mists as we tread the cobblestones.” — The Dallas Morning News
“Alexander McCall Smith has become one of those commodities, like oil or chocolate or money, where the supply is never sufficient to the demand. . . . [He]
is prolific and habit-forming.”
— The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
“[McCall Smith] captures the cold, foggy, historydrenched atmosphere of Edinburgh . . . with a Jane Austen–like attention to detail.”
— USA Today
alexander mccall smith
4 4 S C O T L A N D S T R E E T
Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the huge international phenomenon, The No. 1 Ladies’
Detective Agency series, and The Sunday Philosophy Club series. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe, and he was a law professor at the University of Botswana and at Edinburgh University. He lives in Scotland.
b o o k s b y a l e x a n d e r m cc a l l s m i t h i n t h e n o . 1 l a d i e s ’ d e t e c t i v e a g e n cy s e r i e s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
i n t h e s u n d ay p h i l o s o p h y c l u b s e r i e s The Sunday Philosophy Club
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
i n t h e p o rt u g u e s e i r r e g u l a r v e r b s s e r i e s Portuguese Irregular Verbs
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa 44 Scotland Street
44
SCOTLAND
STREET
44
SCOTLAND
STREET
A L E X A N D E R M c C A L L S M I T H
Illustrations b y
I A I N M c I N TO S H
a n c h o r b o o k s
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Alexander McCall Smith Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Iain McIntosh All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd., Edinburgh, in 2005.
This book is excerpted from a series that originally appeared in the Scotsman newspaper.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948–44 Scotland Street / Alexander McCall Smith ; illustrations by Iain McIntosh.
p. cm.
eISBN 0-307-27679-1
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Art galleries, Commercial—
Employees—Fiction. 3. Edinburgh (Scotland)—Fiction. 4. Apartment houses—Fiction. 5. Roommates—Fiction. I. Title: Forty-four Scotland Street. II. McIntosh, Iain, ill. III. Title. PR6063.C326A613 2005
823'.914—dc22
2005043627
w w w . a n c h o r b o o k s . c o m
v1.0
This is for Lucinda Mackay
Chapter title
vii
Preface
Most books start with an idea in the author’s head. This book started with a conversation that I had in California, at a party held by the novelist, Amy Tan, whose generosity to me has been remarkable. At this party I found myself talking to Armistead Maupin, the author of Tales of the City. Maupin had revived the idea of the serialised novel with his extremely popular serial in The San Francisco Chronicle. When I returned to Scotland, I was asked by The Herald to