Book review: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith

The twenty-seventh book I read in 2015 is the second book in the Isabel Dalhousie series, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, by Alexander McCall Smith. The mystery in this installment has to do with a man who, after having a heart transplant, is haunted by a recurring dream which he suspects might have to do with the death of the donor.

Once again, Isabel stumbles about, blundering into several false leads, one of which puts her in the situation of being remarkably intrusive to an unsuspecting family in a time of tragedy, but the reader seems to be expected to forgive and forget, because, after all, it's Isabel!  Her name is on the cover of the book, and these other people's aren't!  So their feelings don't really matter!

As you've probably gathered, Isabel has not risen in my estimation in the second book of her series. She continues to be tiresome and self-absorbed, all the while under the impression that she's clever and generous.  Things are made worse by her crush on a man just young enough to be her child, if she'd gotten a promiscuous start, who is, additionally, her niece's ex-boyfriend.  She is determined to love him quietly from afar, but enough hints are dropped that she'll eventually turn out to be astonished to learn that he feels the same way about her, despite the age difference, that I shudder in advance.

In regard to the main mystery, it's early enough in the series that one wonders: Is the supernatural going to be validated in this setting, or will there turn out to be a rational explanation?  Suffice it to say that the truth turns out to be the least interesting (and least likely) option, as the whole premise of the plot collapses into anticlimax.