With a failed marriage behind her, La (short for Lavender) moves to the Suffolk countryside on the eve of the Second World War to nurse her broken heart. Lonely and at a loss, she is encouraged to bring the villagers and the men from the local airbase together by forming an amateur orchestra. Soon her feelings are stirring again.

'Corduroy Mansions' is the nickname given to a crumbling mansion block in London's vibrant Pimlico. It is inhabited by an assortment of characters - including, amongst others, a literary agent, a wine merchant, one accountant, possibly the first ever nasty Liberal Democrat MP and his long-suffering PA, and a small dog in his prime.

Isabel Dalhousie is drawn into the investigation when an anonymous letter arrives at a local boarding school suggesting that one of the shortlisted candidates for the position of headmaster has a compromising past. But which one is it? She turns to her fiance Jamie for advice, but he too appears to have something to hide."

* Mma Ramotswe's twelfth adventure

Mma Ramotswe, normally a sound and peaceful sleeper, finds her slumbers disturbed by a dream of a tall man beneath an acacia tree. But she is not quite ready to discover what this vision may portend. Soon even Mma Makutsi, now in the first flush of married bliss, has to admit that untoward things are occuring around the agency.

The story of Bertie & his dysfunctional family continues in this sixth instalment alongside the familiar cast of favourites - Big Lou, Domenica, Angus Lordie, Cyril & others - in their daily pursuit of a little happiness.

Welcome to Corduroy Mansions in Pimlico, a temple of arts and crafts architecture. With comforting, weathered brickwork and frankly frivolous dormer windows, it is home to a delightfully eccentric cast of Londoners.

Happy with her husband-to-be and beloved son, Isabel Dalhousie has feelings about parenthood that grow more tender daily. So when Jane, a visiting academic adopted and sent to Australia as a baby, asks for help in tracing her Scottish origins, she cannot refuse. However, habitually upright Isabel finds herself beset by temptation - for instance, to be suspicious of Professor Lettuce's latest subterfuge, and of her niece Cat's weakness for the wrong man. And when the search for Jane's parents turns troubling, she can hardly prevent herself from interfering too forcefully in family secrets. As...

Amateur sleuth Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher who also uses her training to solve unusual mysteries. Isabel is Editor of the Review of Applied Ethics - which addresses such questions as 'Truth telling in sexual relationships' - and she also hosts The Sunday Philosophy Club at her house in Edinburgh. Behind the city's Georgian facades its moral compasses are spinning with greed, dishonesty and murderous intent. Instinct tells Isabel that the young man who tumbled to his death in front of her eyes at a concert in the Usher Hall didn't fall. He was pushed. With Isabel Dalhousie Alexander...

Isabel Dalhousie thinks often of friends, sometimes of lovers, and on occasion of chocolate. As an Edinburgh philosopher she is certain of where she stands. She can review a book called In Praise of Sin with panache and conviction, but real life is...well, perhaps a bit more challenging - particularly when it comes to her feelings for Jamie, a younger man who should have married her niece, Cat. Jamie's handsomeness leaves Isabel feeling distinctly uneasy, and ethically disturbed. 'I am a philosopher', she thinks, 'but I am also a woman'. And more disturbance is in store. When Cat takes a...