Part of Isabel Dalhousie, book 3
First published 2006
Isabel Dalhousie encounters Tom Bruce when friends from Dallas visit Edinburgh. Tom is a powerful businessman from Texas with a young fiancée whose wandering attention suggests financial motives behind her affection. Isabel faces a puzzle when Tom himself begins showing interest in her. Meanwhile, her niece Cat falls for a man Isabel believes is too attached to his mother. Grace the housekeeper and Jamie both tell Isabel to avoid getting involved. But Isabel edits the Review of Applied Ethics, and philosophical questions about truth-telling versus silence draw her in. She believes some detective work is justified, particularly when hearts are at stake. The situations force Isabel to wrestle with when intervention helps and when it harms.
Genres: fiction, romance, literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Edinburgh, Dallas, Texas
Period: Contemporary
276 pages · Hardcover · Pantheon