It is summer in Edinburgh and Isabel Dalhousie is once again caught between gossip and significant rumour. It is none of her business that Patricia, the mother of her son Charlies little friend Basil, is estranged from Basils father, or that the woman has a somewhat brazen attitude to childcare. And yet, it is curious.Isabel, however, has much else on her mind as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. Along with the work involved for its impending next issue, she really needs to get her house in order and tend to the demands of her niece, Cat.