June 2026

The Subtle Pleasures of Indiscretion is the 15th book in the Isabel Dalhousie series, out now in the UK in hardback. It has already received a glowing review in the Courier who said ‘ In a world of conflict, we can rely on McCall Smith to focus on what we have in common rather than that which would drive us apart’. The surface of Isabel Dalhousie’s life is usually a tranquil one. From her house in Edinburgh she edits a philosophical journal. In the background is her long-time housekeeper, Grace, her handsome husband, Jamie, and her two small boys, Charlie and Magnus. And yet, in the middle of this rather idyllic setting, things are happening to test Isabel.

The Subtle Pleasures of Indiscretion

‘I have never bitten anybody,’ said Isabel Dalhousie. And then she added, as is sometimes necessary given the unreliability of human memory. ‘At least, as far as I can recall.’

She addressed this remark to her husband Jamie, a bassoonist, her soulmate and the father of her two children, Magnus and Charlie, both of whom now had a history of biting other children at nursery school.

Jamie was inclined to be tolerant. ‘Who among us has not bitten somebody?’ he asked. ‘And according to Freud – I think – biting is a normal feature of the oral stage.’

Isabel looked thoughtful. ‘The id can quote scripture for its own purposes,’ she said. ‘Normal, yes, but still resistible?’

‘Magnus is impulsive,’ said Jamie. ‘All small children are. We can’t expect him to resist his impulses.’

‘But he has to learn,’ insisted Isabel. ‘That’s what socialisation is all about.’

They were in the kitchen when this exchange took place. Jamie was busy preparing a cheese souffle that he intended to serve with a broad-bean salad, it being his turn to do the evening meal. There was a rota pinned on the back of the kitchen door, and cooking duties were shared equally. He, though, tended to more than his fair share, frequently offering to make dinner when it was really Isabel’s turn.

‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘You have much more to do than I have. I’ve only got to play a few notes from time to time…’

Isabel smiled at the self-depracation. Jamie was modest – unduly so; she knew how demanding it was to be a professional musician. There were long hours spent in practice and poring over scores; there were protracted rehearsals with difficult conductors. It was work that was quite capable of taking a physical toll.

‘Cooking is relaxing,’ Jamie continued. ‘Particularly after a stressful day. One can always chop onions mindfully.’

Isabel agreed, though she felt that it was important to bear in mind that for the majority of women, preparing family meals was an unrewarding chore, to be repeated day after day – and without much assistance from men. She was careful, though, to remind herself that there was nothing to complain about in her own circumstances. On the contrary; she and Jamie lived in a comfortable house in a leafy corner of Edinburgh; he had a job he loved, doing what he really wanted to do, which was to make music with others; and she, for her part, was her own boss as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, a journal she happened to own. If that were not enough, Isabel had inherited from her late father the services of a housekeeper, Grace, who kept the house clean, helped to look after the boys, and seemed to enjoy routine supermarket shopping.

Professional housekeepers have their quirks, but even by the standards of her profession, Grace was markedly unusual. Not only did she have esoteric reading habits – she recently made her way through a two-volume biography of Russian mystic Madame Blavatsky – but she was also a long-term member of an enthusiastic spiritualist group. This met each Wednesday in the Spiritual Dimension Centre in the city. There, the members of the group communicated through a guest medium, with what she called ‘the other side’. The precise location of the other side was never made clear – it was referred to as a place, even if, as Grace insisted, notions of time and physicality were largely otiose in that dimension. ‘We prefer not to think in physical terms,’ she reminded Isabel, in a tone of slight reproach. ‘Place has no meaning in the world of spirit. That dimension is… is all spirit, you see. It involves complete disembodiment.’

‘So we leave everyhing behind?’ Isabel asked. As a philosopher, she had no difficulty in grasping the notion that concepts had no physical form – although Plato spoke of ideas existing in their own realm, a ‘place beyond heaven’ as he put it. More prosaically, Isabel wondered whether Grace believed we ourselves might look the same on the other side. Did our physical imperfections survive? Did we age, or were the young forever young once they crossed the Styx? The beautiful might remain the beautiful, perhaps, while the less favoured stayed, disappointingly, just as they were. Of course, we might all be miraculously transformed into equal beings, shimmering presences freed of our earthly burden, or we might simply become ideas, devoid of bodily form.

Grace considered Isabel’s question and then nodded. ‘Everything is left behind.’

Isabel pondered this. ‘And men and women – are they the same on the other side?’

Grace had the answer. ‘They are beyond all that. That’s earthly business that makes no sense in the world of spirit.’

Isabel looked thoughtful. ‘There’s a case for that approach – even on this side,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think life might be easier if we spent more time on shared identity than on our difference?’

No, Grace did not think it was that simple. ‘We have to inhabit bodies,’ she told Isabel. ‘We cannot just be spirit – on this side.’ She paused. ‘But I agree with you that we should spend more time on what we have in common rather than on what keeps us apart. We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns, after all.’

Isabel understood the reference. Jock Tamson, in Scottish parlance, was the ordinary man, the person in the street, the average citizen – Joe Average, Everyman – he had a number of names, but in Scotland he was Jock Tamson. Jock had no side to him – no pretensions to be anything other than what he was. None of us, therefore, was any better than anybody else. To say that we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns was to make a statement of egalitarianism that resonated at a fundamental level with Scottish sentiments. Nae nonsense – no nonsense – was another way of putting it in Scottish vernacular.

‘The bottom line,’ Grace continued, ‘is that everybody deserves to be treated with respect.’

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The Subtle Pleasures of Indiscretion is available in the UK now (£20, hardback).