Product Description

A deliciously entertaining new series by the bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

The many fans of Precious Ramotswe will find further cause for celebration in the protagonist of Alexander McCall Smith’s irresistibly funny trilogy, the eminent (if shamefully under-read) philologist Professor Dr. Mortiz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute at Regensburg. Unnaturally tall, hypersensitive to slights, and oblivious to his own frequent gaucheries, von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he knows is due him.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs follows the Professor from a busman’s holiday researching old Irish obscenities to a flirtation with a desirable lady dentist. In The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs, von Igelfeld practices veterinary medicine without a license, transports relics for a schismatically challenged Coptic prelate and is mobbed by marriage-minded widows on board a Mediterranean cruise ship. In At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, the final novel in the trilogy, we find our hero suffering the slings of academic intrigue as a visiting fellow at Cambridge, and the slings of outrageous fortune in an eventful Columbian adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1121145 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

From AudioFile
The author of the highly successful NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY offers another treasure in this gentle satire of academics. This first book of a trilogy chronicles the activities of Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, professor of philology and author of PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS, a scholarly tome of 1200 pages, only 200 copies of which have been sold and even fewer of which (if any) have been read. (Von Igelfeld's female dentist uses her copy as the perfect step stool for reaching patients.) Paul Hecht's deep baritone gives the necessary pseudo-scholarly tone to academicians measuring out their lives in Dravidian verb shifts, Urdu subjunctives, and Early Irish obscenities. Hecht takes the seemingly pointless minutiae of archaic grammars and transforms them into moments of quiet mirth, always investing the bumbling von Igelfeld with endearing goodness. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author
Alexander McCall Smith is Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and the author of over fifty books. These range from specialist titles such as Forensic Aspects of Sleep to The Criminal Law of Botswana and The Children of Wax, a collection of African folk tales. But he is best known for writing The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which has achieved bestseller status on four continents.