Trains and Lovers: A Novel
The latest from McCall Smith, Scotland’s contemporary answer to Anthony Trollope, is a stand-alone novel, set on the train from Edinburgh to London. Unfortunately, the novel is a rare misfire for McCall Smith, the architect of the “everyone brings problems to one place” frame used to such wonderful effect in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and in the elegantly interlocking stories in the 44 Scotland Street and Corduroy Mansions series. The frame here has four people in one train compartment: three men (from Scotland, the U.S., and England) and one woman (from Western Australia) settle in to tell each other tales of their past loves. It would take a derrick to suspend this I beam of disbelief, beginning with the startling fact that these twenty-first-century travelers occupy the entire journey by taking turns talking—there’s not an iPad in sight. Those who expect the sort of assignations promised by the cover art will be disappointed; there’s not even any flirting. Still, if readers can ignore the screeching narrative wheels, there are the usual rewards to reading McCall Smith, including his deft descriptions of landscape and the physical characteristics of his characters—and, of course, his wise and witty reflections on love and luck. --Connie Fletcher