The unstoppable McCall Smith omnibus

Alexander McCall Smith shows no sign of tiring, which will come as good or bad news depending on your view. He has numerous titles out next year. There is yet another instalment of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detection Agency: The Limpopo Agency of Private Detection will be published in hardback on March 1. No further comment is required because McCall Smith’s sleuthing formula is as famous as the Voodoo-Hoodoo.

Next, the latest episodes of McCall Smith’s Corduroy Mansions experiment, A Conspiracy of Friends. This was originally an eBook, serialised on the Telegraph’s website. The plan was to revive the episodic form by which Dickens, Thackeray et al wrote. Now, the complete work has been collected into a glossy hardback book.

McCall Smith first dallied with episodic novels in 44 Scotland Street, which was serialised in the Scotsman in 2004. The latest instalment of that series of novels, Bertie Plays the Blues, was published earlier this year; the paperback version will be released in time for the summer hordes on 24th May 2012.