Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher by training, and an amateur sleuth by choice. When a young man falls from a balcony to his death, Isabel does not believe it was an accident. Plunging deep into the shady business community of Edinburgh, she is determined to root out the truth.

an Edinburgh philosopher and well-meaning intervener in the affairs of others -- makes a comment that suggests the kind of entertainment "The Lost Art of Gratitude" is going to be. "Somebody had told her," Isabel muses, "that the essence of a good still life was the feeling it inspired that something was just on the point of happening. What was about to happen here?" Not much, it turns out. This literary still life will go on for 56 more pages before...

"Our favorite moral philosopher is caught up in a delicate dispute between members of a prominent family as her husband, Jamie, is dragged into his own internecine rivalry. Isabel accepts an invitation to serve on the advisory committee of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, but soon finds herself swept up in an all-too-familiar dilemma. David is the grandson of a Scottish clan chief and is supportive of Scottish nationalism. But his fervent beliefs...