The heartwarming and hilarious second installment in the Corduroy Mansions series presents the further adventures of Alexander McCall Smith's newest, already-beloved character: the Pimlico Terrier Freddie de la Hay.

In the elegantly crumbling four-storey mansion block in Pimlico called Corduroy Mansions, the comings and goings of the wonderfully motley crew of residents continue apace. A pair of New Age operators has determined that Terence Moongrove's estate is the cosmologically correct place for their Centre for Cosmological Studies. Literary agent Barbara Ragg has decided to represent a man who is writing a book about his time "hanging out" with the abominable snowman. And, our small, furry, endlessly surprising canine hero, Freddie de la Hay - belonging to failed oenophile William French - has been recruited by MI6 to infiltrate a Russian spy ring. Needless to say, the other denizens of Corduroy Mansions have issues of their own. But all of it will be addressed with the wit, charm and insight into the foibles of the human condition that have become the hallmark of this truly peerless storyteller.