44 Scotland Street

He's hardly boyfriend material, she tells herself, nor is Matthew, the aesthetically impaired owner of the gallery where she's employed. Pat's mundane life becomes infinitely more interesting when she suspects that one of the gallery's paintings may be an undiscovered work of eighteenth-century portraitist Samuel Peploe. Fearful that a customer is also in on the secret, Pat hides the painting in her apartment, where it's put to use by Bruce. The novel, originally serialized in The Scotsman, has multiple subplots in which the author gently mocks fellow Scots.