Depending on how well my reading is (or is not) going while back East, this book review should finally catch me up. I have had a pretty consistent lag between reading the book and blogging about it, though it is probably not such a bad idea to let some time go by to let it rest/rise/sink in.
If you have been reading my book posts with any kind of regularity, you know Alexander McCall Smith is my go-to guy if I am looking for a quick, easy, and enjoyable read.
44 Scotland Street is the first book in yet another series. I have read a handful of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books and sheepishly have to admit I love them... earlier this year, I gave the Sunday Philosophy Club a try... and after some initial concerns, I enjoyed that as well... so why not try and go for the McCall Smith trifecta (though, believe it or not, he has yet another series... Portuguese Irregular Verbs, you have to give him credit for titles).
If the title seems to have a bit of a familiarity to it... say a certain address in San Francisco... you would be correct. While I knew that this book was kind of a soap opera-ish tale of residents living in the same building in Edinburgh... I had no idea, until I read the preface, that it was inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series... with the collection of all those book often referred to as the 28 Barbary Lane omnibus. Additionally, just like Tales this book (and its sequels) were first serialized in daily doses in a newspaper. So I thought that was all pretty cool... I love(d) Tales (believe me, the latest Maupin non-sequel in that series is on my "to be read" priority list)... and McCall Smith has been a guilty pleasure, so definitely a good marriage!
... and that's what I get for thinking high and big going into the book. While it was quick and easy reading (110 chapters in 325 pages), I didn't quite find the characters that engaging. The one major exception was Domenica, the eccentric widow who lives upstairs... who had some of the same spark as McCall Smith's other lead female protagonists, No 1's Mma Ramotswe and Philosophy's Isabel Dalhousie. Maybe I am getting old (and McCall Smith's no spring chicken either)... but the young cast of characters were just not likeable ... either arrogant, overbearing, pushy, dim, or a bit of a slacker. Now there's nothing wrong with having some of that in this ensemble, but at least the story kept jumping around between them, but it was like going from evil to lesser evil (or vice versa).
While I have no regrets having read the book, I am not sure if I will continue on with this series. No great loss, since I am never lacking for the next book to read. It seems like there is a bit of a McCall Smith trend, with fans of the No 1 series not having the same enthusiasm for his other book. I had read that when I picked up Philosophy, and that one was fine for me... so I guess I was "due" not to LOVE(!!) 44 Scotland.
2007 10K Reading Challenge: + 325 pages (Total Pages: 5862 pages)
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