Laura Walin's Reviews > The Quiet Side of Passion

I am always between being irritated and adoring when reading about Isabel Dalhosie, the philosopher. She seems awfully nosy about other people's business to the extent that I find not normal, no matter how well she justifies herself with duty to intervene and other moral imperatives.

In this novel she leaned relatively strongly to the irritating side, prying on the parental status of one of her son's playschool mates as well as speculating on several other relationships in her vicinity. On top of that, what bothered me was her out-of-character naivete when employing people to help her. Would an intelligent woman really hire an au pair from an agency without a single interview?

The language of McCall Smith continues to be beautiful in the choice of words and the rhythm of sentences, but that does not quite compensate for the deficiencies in the logic and behaviour of Ms Dalhousie. I hope she gets her act together in the next novel.