Anthropologist Domenica, who has played a fairly minor role in the previous two books, here flies off to the Straits of Malacca to study modern-day pirates, and her part of the book, taking us away from Edinburgh for a time, gives things a real breath of fresh air.
Back in Edinburgh, however, Pat finally moves from 44 Scotland Street and develops a crush on fellow art student Wolf, whose strange ways hint at a darker subplot that involves Pat's flatmate. Wolf's involvement is fairly short-lived - which is just as well for Pat. She later moves in with gallery owner Matthew, who's also her boss. He's struggling with both a sudden (enormous) fortune and a yearning for Pat, one that's barely reciprocated. After Wolf, Matthew still seems rather colourless.
And there's a twist concerning Bertie's mother and the unpleasant psychiatrist, Dr Fairburn.
And Now to Number Four
If McCall Smith hadn't discovered the wonderful character of Bertie in the first of the 44 Scotland St series - along with his indomitable mother - it's likely the books wouldn't have taken off the way they have. The fourth in the series therefore honours its best character in its title: The World According to Bertie.
Bertie is by no means the strongest character in the stories, but he's plainly the one that McCall Smith has a real heart for, and even though he has no bigger part to play than anyone else in the fourth book, his every appearance makes the reader sit back and say: Ah, now the story will really be interesting.
Bertie, along with two of the other children in Miss Harmony's school, the improbably-named Tofu, and Olive, are characters that really click in a way some of adult characters don't. Bertie (almost) cannot tell a lie, which has consequences for the adults; Tofu tells almost nothing but lies, spinning them like a spider with a web, and Olive is a little girl almost as dominating as Bertie's mother. And she gets her comeuppance in this book.
Between books three and four, Bertie has acquired a little brother who, like Tofu, has an improbable name: Ulysses. Ulysses doesn't do much, in line with most babies, but he has a little mystery hanging over his head. Perhaps he isn't really the son of his father…? Bertie's suggestions in this regard cause not a little confusion.
The only other character of sustained interest is Bruce, who has been in London but finds the draw of Edinburgh too much to resist. (Meaning he didn't do as well in London as he expected.) Even though he's narcissistic in the extreme, and uses people like others use paper tissues, he's interesting. You're always waiting to see whether he'll fall flat or survive. He manages to do both simultaneously in this book.
Pat and Matthew float along trying to be the young lovers and not succeeding; the artist loses his dog to the police (he had it stolen in the previous episode); other characters wander in and out without too much passion expended and there are the usual crises over very small aspects of daily lives. But it's Bertie we continually cheer on, it's Bertie who (apparently) gets all the fan mail, and it's Bertie who, his story still unresolved even in this fourth book, will no doubt bring another sequel to pass.
In Summary
The Scotland St books are rather more uneven than those in the Botswana series, but it seems churlish to carp about this when they're so full of good humour, quirky characters and the zest of life. McCall Smith plainly enjoys these people, and conveys that enjoyment to his readers.
Real Edinburgh events and places people appear in all four books in this series. It's an achievement on McCall Smith's part that these realities fit as well into his imaginary world as the imaginary world fits into the real Edinburgh.
