When Alexander McCall Smith announced that he was temporarily closing down Botswana's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and launching a new series, readers grumbled. Fortunately, their lament was needless: Isabel Dalhousie, his new sleuth, is every bit as memorable and sympathetic as Precious Ramotswe. But that's where the resemblances end: Dalhousie is an ever-attentive Scottish philosopher, the editor of the Edinburgh-based Review of Applied Ethics. The journal title seems apt: Isabel spends much of her time applying ethics. For instance, when Mark Fraser falls from the balcony of a concert hall, she feels obliged to investigate because she was the last person the young man saw. Such scruples lead her down alleys perhaps too dangerous to explore, but before we know it, the culprit behind Fraser's seemingly innocent defenestration has been identified. A plucky new series by a master of local color.