Corduroy Mansions

Corduroy Mansions is the first novel in a new series by popular British author Alexander McCall Smith. It was a delight to read.

Full of quirky characters, the story is built around an apartment building in the Pimlico area of London fondly known as Corduroy Mansion. Beginning with widower William French, wine merchant and aggravated father of a twenty-something son who refuses to move out of the flat, the reader is drawn into the lives and relationships of several of the tenants. There’s Caroline, who wants to be THE women to change her friend James’ point of view regarding his sexual preference; Jenny, who works for a Member of Parliament with the odious name of Oedipus Snark; and Dee, who works in a health-food shop. Their lives are intertwined with other relationships. We meet Snark’s girlfriend, Barbara, and Snark’s mother who absolutely hates her own son, William’s friend Marcia who really wants to be more than just a friend and Freddie de la Hay, the Pimlico terrier who was let go from his job as sniffer dog at Heathrow Airport by accident of birth.

The story is about relationships, friends, lovers, co-workers and family, that weave in and out of our lives.  At the end of the book, I was ready for the next installment. I have to see if I’m right about  what happened to Oedipus Snark at boarding school!

-Michele