At once the nosiest and the most sympathetic philosopher you are likely to meet, 40-ish Isabel Dalhousie—half Scottish, half American—lives in a big old house in Edinburgh, where she has taken the editor's post at the Review of Applied Ethics and founded the Sunday Philosophy Club. From the author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, this slightly mysterious, quietly philosophical series is "the literary equivalent of herbal tea and a cozy fire … a world of kindness, gentility, and creature comforts."—NYTimes

In her fifth outing (following The Careful Use of Compliments), Isabel Dalhousie is none too happy with Jamie's new friend, a composer who may entice her not-yet husband to leave her and their son Charlie for a musical career. Meanwhile, a doctor's wife seeks out Isabel, hoping she can get to the truth about the incident that ended his medical career. Did Dr. Moncrieff really submit erroneous data on a drug trial that led to a patient's death, as everyone believes? Or did someone else have a reason to falsify the records?