The Peppermint Tea Chronicles

The 13th book in Alexander McCall Smith's popular 44 Scotland Street series is a sheer delight.

Summer has come to Scotland Street. The long days have prompted its denizens to engage in flights of fancy. Some, like the Duke of Johannesburg's plan to create a microlite seaplane, are literal flights, and some, like the vain Bruce Anderson's idea of settling down with one of his many admirers, are more metaphorical.

With the domineering Irene off pursuing academic challenges, Stuart and Bertie are free to indulge in summer fun. Stuart reconnects with an old acquaintance over refreshing peppermint tea while Bertie takes his friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson to the circus. But their trip to the big top becomes rather more than the pleasant diversion they were hoping for.

Once again, Scotland Street teems with the daily triumphs and challenges of those who call it home, and provides a warm, wise, and witty chronicle of the affairs in this corner of the world.

1

The Plight of Cats in South Australia

Domenica Macdonald, anthropologist, resident of Scotland Street, and wife of Angus Lordie, portrait painter and long-standing member of the Scottish Arts Club, sat in the kitchen of her flat in Scotland Street. She was immersed in a magazine she had bought on impulse at the local newsstand, and so did not hear Angus when he asked her about her plans for the day.

"I said," repeated Angus, "are you going to be doing anything very much today?"

"I'm sorry," said Domenica, looking up from her magazine. "I didn't hear you. I'm reading something here that I can hardly believe."

"Ah!" said Angus. "Oscar Wilde."

"What about him?"

Angus tried to remember exactly what Oscar Wilde had said-he had pronounced on so many things-but found that he could not recall the precise words. "He said something about his diary being sensational reading. Or somebody else's diary. I don't really remember . . ."

"It doesn't matter too much if you can't remember exactly what he said," Domenica reassured him. "Wilde will undoubtedly have more to say. Uniquely, perhaps, among those who are no longer with us, he continues to make witty remarks from beyond the grave-people impute them to him, you see. The volume of his quotations grows daily. This article, though, is about cats in South Australia."

Angus was puzzled. "What about them?"

Domenica shook her head. "They're to be confined."

"In what sense?"

She looked down at the article. "Apparently cats in South Australia have been eating too many birds and small mammals. They're very destructive, cats."