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Book review of 'Espresso Tales,' Alexander McCall Smith's latest in the 44 Scotland Street series

Date published: 8/6/2006

By AMANDA CRISSUP

Alexander McCall Smith once again returns to the roots of the novel genre with "Espresso Tales," the second offering in his Scotland Street series.

Originally published one installment at a time in his hometown newspaper, The Scotsman, "Espresso Tales" revisits his fictional inhabitants of No. 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh.

This time around, summer is in full swing and everyone is feeling the heat. Bruce, recently unemployed but still as narcissistic as ever, has decided to become a wine merchant based on the fact that he likes how wine tastes. After all, what else is required to make it in the wine business?

Bertie, the 6-year-old boy-genius, still hates going to therapy, loathes his yoga and saxophone lessons and especially despises having to attend school wearing pink overalls.

He laments, "'I don't seem to have much fun. I want to have a bit more fun. That boy in Fettes Row has more fun than I do.'

'Oh, Bertie, you can't say that! Anybody can fish--very few boys can play the saxophone. And then there's your Italian lessons, and your yoga, and '" replies his mother.

The sad part is, this list isn't part of Bertie's activity-packed summer, but rather part of his weekly routine that his neurotic mother, Irene, thinks of as "the Bertie project." He just wants to do things like the other boys, like going fishing and playing rugby, and he's determined to try to outsmart his mother and Dr. Fairbairn, his psychotherapist.

Edinburgh is a small university town not unlike Fredericksburg where many people live while they commute to the larger metropolis. This makes Edinburgh a familiar landscape even if you've never ventured far from the East Coast. Edinburgh has art galleries where Pat, one of the main characters, works, and it has friendly neighborhood coffee shops where Big Lou knows her customers by name and caffeine preference.

"Espresso Tales" was not, however, an easy read. It's not that the language was difficult--the colloquialisms are very endearing--but because I was expecting more from it.

So much best-selling fiction is action-packed or thinly veiled schadenfreude that I kept waiting for these people's idyllic lives to implode.

Espresso Tales By Alexander McCall Smith (Anchor, 345 pages, $13.95)

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Date published: 8/6/2006