Paul Stewart, the rather dour food writer from Edinburgh whom readers first met in My Italian Bulldozer, struggling over his new book, The Philosophy of Food in Six Easy Chapters, a project he relishes but has to deliver in just six months. Unfortunately, Paul's current domestic arrangements are not conducive to the hard work of getting words down on the page. His agent and girl friend Gloria has moved in with him and has brought along two extremely vocal and demanding Siamese cats. Attempts to ameliorate the situation just make matters worse. Paul worries that The Philosophy of Food will never be finished. Then his eccentric cousin Chloe comes to Paul's aid. Chloe persuades Paul to a radical course of action. She has taken a six-month lease on a house in a French village not far from Poitiers and invites him to join her there for the summer and finish his book in peace. Paul gives in to temptation and escapes to France.
Once there, however, Paul finds himself entangled all over again, this time in the village's only eating establishment: the infamous Second Worst Restaurant in France. Not McCall Smith's best effort, but even a relatively uninspired McCall Smith is still better than the best efforts of many other writers.
Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus.
Click HERE to read the review in the New York Journal of books.
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