Finer Points of Sausage Dogs by Alexander McCall Smith (2003)

I wanted a change of pace in my reading and knew McCall Smith could provide one. I really liked the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series better, but Dr. von Igelfeld was entertaining as a pompous academic (know a few of those) of the Portugese language, who ends up addressing veterinarians in Arkansas, hobnobbing with high clerics in Rome, and being mobbed on a cruise ship. I like it anytime someone uses a library in a book, and he did spend time in the Vatican library. The book was funny, so I don't know why it felt so disconcerting at times, why I was uncomfortable with von Igelfeld's awkward situations. The words "sausage dog" were funny in and of themselves and McCall Smith plays with them quite a bit. I had to look the term up and find they are a humorous British term for dachshunds.