The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of ComplimentsFull-time philosopher

and occasional sleuth Isabel Dalhousie, now the mother of a baby boy, is

getting used to the new rhythms of her life, caring for little Charlie

with the sometimes unsettling aid of her forthright housekeeper, Grace,

having dinners with Charlie’s father, Jamie, and tending as usual to

submissions to the Review of Applied Ethics. But Isabel is deeply

unsettled when she receives a letter telling her that she is soon to be

replaced as editor of the Review by Christopher Dove, an ambitious

academic at a London university, and she considers a variety of ways of

dealing with this unwelcome news. And her niece, Cat, who a couple of

years before had rejected Jamie and broken his heart, is now furious at

Isabel for having stolen him away.Isabel’s insatiable

curiosity—or what Jamie sees as her tendency toward meddling—is peaked

when she learns some odd details regarding two paintings by a Scottish

artist that have come onto the auction market, and she begins to think

that the paintings might be forgeries. Her investigation takes her to

the beautiful Isle of Jura, where she finds some recent traces of the

painter and learns of his apparent suicide in the fabled whirlpool

called the Corryvreckan. A visit to the painter’s widow brings a

surprising realization, one that contributes to her musings throughout

the story on mothers, fathers, and sons.