Book review: The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

The twenty-second book I read in 2016 was The Careful Use of Compliments, the fourth book in Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series.  As you may recall from my review of the third book of the series, I don't like Isabel Dalhousie.  In fact, I stated my intention not to pay more than $5 at Half Price Books for future installments just out of morbid curiosity.

Well, I've been looking at Half Price Books for months now, and while the rest of the Dalhousie oeuvre has been readily available, book four has been playing hard to get.  The result of all this coyness was that, when I found The Careful Use of Compliments on the shelf, I snatched it up with an alacrity all out of proportion for the amount of pleasure I expected it to give me.

Having got past that realization, I can at least report that reading this book has clarified in my mind exactly why I hate Isabel.  She's a manipulative narcissist who's too smart for the room and is constantly inventing little games for other people to fail: 'You said that, so now I will say this, and if you really love me, you will respond with that, but since you responded differently, I know that you don't really love me.'  Such a character could conceivably still make an interesting heroine, but McCall Smith seems to expect everyone to think Isabel is absolutely the bee's knees.

For example, the B-plot of this novel revolves around Isabel performing an act of breathtaking pettiness which the author clearly thinks should have readers on their feet cheering.  The book opens with Isabel receiving a letter from the editorial board of the magazine she edits saying that they've voted to replace her, due to political machinations by an academic board member hoping to use the editorship as a springboard to career success.  Even given that Isabel doesn't need the money or the job, this is still A Bad Thing, and I felt her humiliation.  Her response to the situation, however, (and I don't feel bad about spoiling this because it's telegraphed so clearly from the moment the issue arises and she mentions that the magazine's owners would be please to sell it if they got an offer) is to use her own sizeable fortune to buy the magazine, reinstate herself as editor, fire all the board members, and replace them with her own personal friends so that no one will ever dare say anything mean to her again.  Isabel Dalhousie is a Horrible Person.

The A-plot, what would have passed as the mystery if McCall Smith hadn't given up on the very premise, involves some paintings which may or may not be forgeries and is actually quite unobjectionable in comparison with some of Isabel's previous pointless "investigations."  I have no quarrel with it.  Isabel's baby is an annoying plot device, and McCall Smith descends to some pretty unfair character assassination to convince us (or himself) that Cat is a Bad Person whose feelings about her ex-boyfriend having a baby with her aunt can be callously dismissed.