On the case of crime fiction's "No. 1" author, Alexander McCall Smith

Some writers hate book tours, but not Alexander McCall Smith. The tiring travel, he says, is outweighed by his love of meeting new people.

Good thing, too — McCall Smith has become relentlessly peripatetic since the explosive popularity of his "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books, Smith's wry, tender and funny series about a lady detective in Botswana (15 million copies in print and counting).

Having already visited the States several times this year (touching down in every state but Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas), the Scottish author is back again (including a stop in Bellevue) for his latest novel, "The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday" (Pantheon, 241 pp., $22.95).

The author had a day job — professor of medical law at the University of Edinburgh — and wrote some 40 books before hitting the best-seller list. But it's the "No. 1" series, starring the wise, gentle, "traditionally built" Mma Ramotswe, that made him a sensation, and which is being made into a television series tentatively scheduled to run on the HBO network.

The new book is from his series about Isabel Dalhousie, an Edinburgh philosopher who leads an intensely examined life. Sound tedious? No way. Her adventures are both delightfully entertaining and provocative.

McCall Smith recently spoke from Edinburgh, where he lives with his recently retired physician wife (their two daughters are medical students). Here's an edited transcript:

Q: Tell me about the genesis of Isabel Dalhousie.

A: Having written at some length about Mma Ramotswe, I wanted to write about Edinburgh, where I live. I thought a good way would be through the eyes of a philosopher who gets involved in the issues of other people.

Q: Why a philosopher?

A: I'm very interested in applied ethics and philosophy generally. I wanted something that would let me go off on little tangents about that.

So many interesting philosophical issues crop up in everyday life. For example, friendship. How far can friendship extend? Another example would be how we decide what we do for others, for charities. How far do you carry helping the less fortunate?

Q: Has your background in medical law and bioethics influenced the series?

A: Yes, a lot of the issues that Isabel encounters are connected with that. Certainly the new book [about a physician accused of falsifying research data] stems from my experience.

Q: When writing about your hometown, are you tempted to include your friends?

A: I do put in people that I know, always under their own names. I quite like the idea that some characters are real.

In the new book, for example, Edward Mendelson comes to Edinburgh to deliver a lecture. Well, the real Mendelson is [poet W.H.] Auden's executor. And the real Mendelson has agreed to give that precise lecture in Edinburgh in real life! I invited him. It's turning fiction into reality, which I think is wonderful fun.

Q: What's the status of the movie [directed by the late Anthony Minghella] and the upcoming TV series about Mma Ramotswe?

A: I understand that the movie will be shown in America to kick off the series, on HBO. I don't believe they've scheduled a date. As for the series: The crew and actors are all in Botswana, shooting through Christmas.

Q: What did you think about the casting?

A: I thought it was absolutely, tremendously good. Jill Scott [as Mma Ramotswe] is really superb.

Q: So she was built traditionally enough?

A: I think so, yes! She has the most wonderful manners, and a tremendous smile. A very nice woman, and very modest.

Q: I love the title of one of your medical-law texts, "Forensic Aspects of Sleep."

A: Ah, yes! People do pick up on that. I didn't write the whole thing, but I did jointly edit some of it.

Q: So what are we talking about? Crimes committed while sleepwalking?

A: Yes — people can do dreadful things while sleepwalking that can end in court. And things like the legal aspects of sleep deprivation that causes people to create damage while operating machinery.

Q: You've stated that you don't think much while writing, that it's like dreaming.

A: I think a lot of fiction comes from the unconscious, and it's something that one doesn't necessarily have control over. I don't really think, "What's going to come next?" It comes to me, in a way.

Q: And yet your prose is concrete — the opposite of airy-fairy, stream-of-consciousness writing.

A: Yes. It's difficult to work out how it works, but that's the way I tend to do it.

Q: You were born in what is now Zimbabwe, and taught at the University of Botswana. Get back there regularly?

A: Yes, every year to Botswana. This year we set up a little opera house called the No. 1 Ladies' Opera House. It was tremendous fun!

Q: What's next?

A: I just finished a self-standing novel, "La's Orchestra Saves the World." And I've embarked on volume 10 of the Mma Ramotswe series.

Q: I've heard you write 4,000 words daily.

A: On a good day! These days it's probably more like 3,000. But I sometimes can do 4.

Q: You wear kilts to your readings, correct?

A: Yes, I think it shows that one is dressing up to mark the occasion. And people like them!

Q: Do you and your wife still play in the Really Terrible Orchestra?

A: Yes, but I get no better.

Adam Woog reviews crime fiction on the second Sunday of each month in The Seattle Times' Book section.