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Isabel DalhousieSéries

Cette série suit une femme curieuse et d'esprit philosophique qui se retrouve au centre de mystères dans le pittoresque Édimbourg. Chaque affaire la pousse à approfondir les questions d'éthique et de nature humaine. Avec l'aide de sa nièce perspicace et de sa gouvernante pleine de vie, elle résout des meurtres complexes, ses propres émois romantiques ajoutant souvent à l'intrigue. C'est un charmant mélange de roman policier cosy, de contemplation intellectuelle et un portrait de la vie dans la capitale écossaise.

A Distant View of Everything
The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds
The Lost Art of Gratitude
The Careful Use of Compliments
Friends, lovers, chocolate
The Quiet Side of Passion

Ordre de lecture recommandé

  1. 1

    THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB.

    4,0(1)Évaluer

    ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 1 Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhousie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective. Whether investigating a case or a problem of philosophy, the indefatigable Isabel Dalhousie, one of fiction’s most richly developed amateur detectives, is always ready to pursue the answers to all of life’s questions, large and small. In this first installment, Isabel is attending a concert in the Usher Hall when she witnesses a man fall from the upper balcony. Isabel can’t help wondering whether it was the result of mischance or mischief. Against the best advice of her no-nonsense housekeeper Grace, her bassoon playing friend Jamie, and even her romantically challenged niece Cat, she is morally bound to solve this case. Complete with wonderful Edinburgh atmosphere and characters straight out of a Robert Burns poem, The Sunday Philosophy Club is a delightful treat from one of our most beloved authors.

    THE SUNDAY PHILOSOPHY CLUB.
  2. 1

    The Sunday Philosophy Club

    3,4(20123)Évaluer

    Amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who also uses her training to solve unusual mysteries. Isabel is Editor of the Review of Applied Ethics - which addresses such questions as 'Truth telling in sexual relationships' - and she also hosts The Sunday Philosophy Club at her house in Edinburgh. Behind the city's Georgian facades its moral compasses are spinning with greed, dishonesty and murderous intent. Instinct tells Isabel that the young man who tumbled to his death in front of her eyes at a concert in the Usher Hall didn't fall. He was pushed. The Sunday Philosophy Club marks new territory - but familiar moral ground - from the author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. With Isabel Dalhousie Alexander Mccall Smith introduces a new and pneumatic female sleuth to tackle murder, mayhem - and the mysteries of life. As her hero WH Auden maintained, classic detective fiction stems from a desire for an uncorrupted Eden which the detective, as an agent of God, can return to us. But then Isabel, being a philosopher, has a thing or two to say about God as well. Also available as an audiobook from Time Warner Audio Books.

    The Sunday Philosophy Club
  3. 2

    Friends, lovers, chocolate

    • 304pages
    • 11 heures de lecture
    3,6(398)Évaluer

    Isabel Dalhousie thinks often of friends, sometimes of lovers, and on occasion of chocolate. As an Edinburgh philosopher she is certain of where she stands. She can review a book called In Praise of Sin with panache and conviction, but real life is... well, perhaps a bit more challenging - particularly when it comes to her feelings for Jamie, a younger man who should have married her niece, Cat. Jamie's handsomeness leaves Isabel feeling distinctly uneasy, and ethically disturbed. 'I am a philosopher', she thinks, 'but I am also a woman'. And more disturbance is in store. When Cat takes a break in Italy, Isabel agrees to run her delicatessen. One of the customers, she discovers, has recently had a heart transplant and is now being plagued by memories that cannot be rationally explained and which he feels do not belong to him. Isabel is intrigued. So intrigued that she finds herself rushing headlong into a dangerous investigation. But she still has time to think about the things that possess her - things like love and friendship, and, of course, temptation. The last of these comes in many forms - chocolate, for example, or seductive Italians...

    Friends, lovers, chocolate
  4. 3

    The right attitude to rain

    3,8(346)Évaluer

    The key to contentment in the Scottish climate is the right attitude to rain - just as in life the key to happiness lies in making the best of what you have. Bruised in love by her faithless Irish husband, Isabel Dalhousie is a connoisseur of intimate moral issues: she edits a philosophical journal and spends a great deal of her time considering how to improve the lives of those around her. There is her housekeeper Grace, whose future she must secure; her niece Cat, who is embarking on a new relationship with a dubious workaholic mummy's boy; and even an American couple newly arrived in Edinburgh on a tour. And then there is Jamie, Cat's ex-boyfriend, a handsome, gifted musician fourteen years Isabel's junior, with whom she is slowly and hopelessly falling in love. Intensely thoughtful and consistently entertaining, THE RIGHT ATTITUDE TO RAIN is shot through with compassion and unassuming intelligence.

    The right attitude to rain
  5. 4

    The Careful Use of Compliments

    3,8(286)Évaluer

    For philosophically minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And with the arrival of baby Charlie, not to mention a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, fourteen years her junior, Isabel enters deeper and rougher waters. Late motherhood is not the only challenge facing Isabel. Even as she negotiates a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son with her formidable housekeeper Grace, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter's mysterious death off the island of Jura. Perhaps most seriously of all, Isabel's professional existence and that of her beloved Review come under attack from the machiavellian and suspiciously handsome Professor Dove. A master storyteller whether debating ethics in Edinburgh or pursuing lady detectives in Africa, here Alexander McCall Smith is as witty and wise as his irresistibly spirited heroine.

    The Careful Use of Compliments
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    The Lost Art of Gratitude

    • 256pages
    • 9 heures de lecture
    3,8(108)Évaluer

    Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and amateur solver of other people's problems, meets an old foe, Minty Auchterlonie, at a birthday party attended by their young children. Ambitious Minty, now the head of a small investment bank, is in trouble with her shareholders. Isabel becomes involved, and is drawn into a murky world of financial concealment. Minty is not the only high-flier in Isabel's life; her niece Cat has just become engaged to a tightrope-walking stuntman. Isabel fears his next job - and the engagement - could end in disaster. Meanwhile, her own boyfriend Jamie has marriage in mind too . . .

    The Lost Art of Gratitude
  8. 7

    The Charming Quirks of Others

    • 246pages
    • 9 heures de lecture
    3,7(295)Évaluer

    Isabel Dalhousie, Edinburgh philosopher and curious observer of the behaviour of her fellow man, is approached by a friend at a local boarding school that is planning to appoint a new headmaster; an anonymous letter has arrived suggesting that one of the shortlisted candidates has a compromising past. But which one is it? Isabel is once again drawn into an investigation, and finds herself exploring dilemmas of human weakness and forgiveness. She turns to her fiancé Jamie for advice, but he too appears to have something to hide . . .

    The Charming Quirks of Others
  9. 8

    The forgotten affairs of youth

    3,9(4199)Évaluer

    The eighth delightful installment in the ongoing saga of the life and loves of Isabel Dalhousie. As the editor of an applied ethics journal, Isabel Dalhousie is usually tucked away in her editorial office, in the comfortable Edinburgh house she shares with her fiance and their young son, and does not often meet many fellow philosophers. But while helping in the delicatessen owned by her niece, Cat, she meets Jane Cooper, an Australian philosopher who is spending a sabbatical in Scotland. Isabel learns that Jane needs to find out something about her past. Jane was born in Scotland but taken to Australia as a baby by her adoptive parents. She knows who her mother is, but her father's identity is still a mystery. Can Isabel help Jane unconver this important and potentially unsettling information? And in Isabel's own life, there is the ever-present question of marriage, and also the perennially difficult issue of her relationship with Cat, whose choice of men is as dubious as ever.

    The forgotten affairs of youth
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  11. 10

    The Novel Habits of Happiness

    • 256pages
    • 9 heures de lecture
    3,9(36)Évaluer

    From a small town outside Edinburgh comes the news that a young boy has been recounting vivid recollections of a past life: a perfect description of an island off the coast of Scotland which he couldn't possibly know, and a house there, where he claims to have spent his former life. When the boy's mother asks Isabel to investigate his claims, she feels she must help them learn the truth, and she and her husband, Jamie, set off for the island. But finding the house the boy described only leads to more complicated questions.

    The Novel Habits of Happiness
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