The twenty-ninth book I read in 2015 is the third book in the Isabel Dalhousie series, The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith. The first thing to note is that, with this book, the subtitle (supertitle?) switches from "An Isabel Dalhousie Mystery" to "An Isabel Dalhousie Novel." (The newer reprints of the first two books, if you note on Amazon, have also changed, but I have older copies so I have proof.) This is McCall Smith admitting that he really has no further interest in anything extrinsic to his protagonist's very limited life. In one sense, it's a good thing: she was a lousy detective. On the other hand ... really? He's just going to keep writing stream of consciousness novels in her interior voice? *Sideshow Bob shudder*
In keeping with the altered supertitle, what probably began as his concept for the mystery in this book before he admitted his lack of interest is a wealthy Dallas oilman with a young trophy wife. Well, a trophy fiancee. Isabel suspects that said trophy fiancee is only interested in the older man for his money. Wait, no, that's not the clever part, since Isabel's cousin Mimi reports that the fact is an open secret in the wealthy Dallas social circle they share. The really clever part that Isabel suspects is that the woman is planning to kill her fiance for his money. Before the wedding. When she wouldn't actually inherit it yet.
At that point, McCall Smith must have realized that all of this made less than no sense and just chucked it all in favor of the story he really wanted to tell, which was How Isabel Got Her Groove Back. Except that in the Angela Bassett movie, the older woman and younger man actually end up in a relationship, whereas in Isabel's case, the morning-after pillow talk she gets is, "I'm very fond of you." For some reason, Isabel takes this as a Good Thing and not as the "Thanks for the sex, you will never see me again" it would be in the real world.
If our Disney ending were just that Isabel becomes temporary Friends-with-Benefits with a younger man, that would be bad enough. But after that...
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Spoiler alert
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...How Isabel Got Her Groove Back turns into Murphy Brown. Look, I know Alexander McCall Smith isn't exactly a Millennial, but a surprise pregnancy within the first month or so of occasionally sleeping together doesn't say "accident" anymore. It says either "sloppy and irresponsible" or "if I have his baby, he won't leave me," neither of which makes Isabel and her paramour look worthy of respect. Birth control: use it.
Oh, and the "mystery" predictably goes nowhere. Is the fiancee really planning to kill him? Who knows? Wealthy Dallas oilman decides to dump his trophy girlfriend because she's not half the woman Isabel is. Isabel, of course, lets him down easy, but it's better for wealthy Dallas oilman to have loved and lost Isabel than never to have met Isabel at all. She's just that amazing.
So we're left moving forward with a forty-something-year-old single woman having a baby, while her occasional-sex-partner-but-not-boyfriend is thrilled and will be just as involved as she wants him to be (as long as he doesn't have to marry her or make any similar commitment, apparently). I've been getting this series from Half Price Books, and my sense of the macabre is enough that I'll pay $5 for the next installment just to see how bad it can get, but I'm certainly not paying full price.
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