Who could resist Alexander McCall Smith? Whilst I enjoy the Ladies' No 1 Detective Agency, I reserve my real soft spot for Bertie and co at 44 Scotland Street. Nothing too astonishing every happens but you get caught up in the comings and goings of the local residents. Bertie, with his strangely named class mates, never gets much older and his mother continues to be awful. China may or may not have been misappropriated, Cyril (the dog with a gold tooth) is cleared of biting and real people (like Jack Rankin) sometimes stroll across the pages.
A book in a similar spirit is The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama. Anyone who likes McCall Smith will enjoy this gentle book about an Indian marriage bureau.
Kate Atkinson's books are very different from the gentle worlds of McCall Smith and Zama. They are an unusual kind of detective fiction with different threads of stories being returned to in turn before coming together in the end.
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