Publisher's Synopsis
In Espresso Tales, Alexander McCall Smith returns to Edinburgh and the residents of 44 Scotland Street, with a new set of challenges for each one of them. Bruce, the intolerably vain and perpetually deluded ex-surveyor, is about to embark on a new career as a wine merchant, while his long-suffering flatmate Pat MacGregor finds herself invited to a nudist picnic in the pursuit of true love. Prodigious six-year-old Bertie Pollock wants a boy's life of fishing and rugby, not yoga and pink dungarees, so he plots rebellion against his bossy, crusading mother Irene and his psychotherapist. But when Bertie's longed-for trip to Glasgow with his ineffectual father ends in shady dealings, it looks like Bertie should have been more careful about what he wished for. Tackling issues of trust and honesty, snobbery and hypocrisy, love and loss, all with great lightness of touch, this elegant and funny novel is hugely entertaining.
