Friends, Lovers and Chocolate. I borrowed this book from my husband who was given a huge pile of Alexander McCall Smiths books at Christmas.

Isabel Dalhousie has many friends, she is a spinster Philosopher living in Edinburgh, and is the Editor of "the Review of Applied Ethics", she enjoys a "Genteel" life, with housekeeper Grace looking after her, although she doesn't live-in. Grace is more down to earth but does enjoy going to spiritualist meetings and has met a nice man there.

Jamie is a young Musician, a bassoonist and he teaches adolescents in his home and also plays in chamber orchestras when needed, he like many others enjoys a friendship with Isobel who treats her guests to glasses of wine and often meals. He had a friendship with Isabel's niece, but it fell through, although he remained friends with Isabel.

Isabel's niece Cat plays a part too in this story and this is where the Chocolate comes in, as she runs a delicatessen and also attracts the Lovers! Or so we are lead to believe, more Lovers are included later in the story. A young man called Eddie helps in the shop, but he is not confident to be left alone for long.

The story starts in an Edinburgh churchyard, where a man called Ian goes to pay his respects to a poet who had died many years before. He thinks this will be his last visit, when he is distracted by a woman calling to him to say that the time has come for him to go into hospital for a heart transplant.

Isabel looks after the shop whilst Cat goes away to Italy, and I found myself so involved in the goings on that in Tesco the other day looking at triangular oatcakes I thought who wanted these, and then remembered it was in the book! In Italy she meets Tomasso from Palermo, and having visited there earlier this year I pictured the attractive olive skinned gentleman quite easily. He drives his Bugatti over to Scotland,to see Cat and Isabel is sure he must be part of the Mafia!

The story involves several other people and an urban fox that comes into Isabel's garden, there are times when I feel it is moving too slowly, but at others it proceeds well. Without giving too much of the story away, Isabel meets Ian after his transplant and he asks her help to discover more about the donor because of things which have happened to him. On the back cover it says "he is being plagued by memories that cannot be rationally explained and which he feels do not belong to him". Could it be possible that a transplanted heart can cause this? As the story unfolds, the reader is taken on visits around Edinburgh and the surrounding area meeting other characters, not all works out well, and Isabel wonders if she is interfering where she shouldn't be.

At one point Isabel goes into a public house where she treats a woman to a drink and the woman replies "Thank you Hen". As I live near Edinburgh I know that "Hen" is a term of affection, like Duck in Yorkshire, and this is explained for non Scottish readers. There are lots of descriptions and names of areas that I know, but it is written in such a way that it doesn't matter if you don't know the area. Chocolate comes under attack when Isabel considers writing a paper on food.

Just under 300 pages, and one in a series called "The Sunday Philosophy Club" this book sells at £7.99 but I believe was one of several from the Book People. Available used for 1p on Amazon or under 35 new. I quite enjoyed the story, at times I felt it too slow, with too much information about things I didn't need to know, but others may enjoy that part of the book.

Alexander McCall Smith has written over 60 books on many subjects. He was a Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University and lives in Edinburgh. I like his way of writing and several well known magazines and papers have written good reviews on this story. Do I recommend it? Yes, probably not the best book I've read but I enjoyed it and strangely so did my husband, it's not his usual book either!

Genre is Crime/Thriller and ISBN 978-0-349-11804-8