The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs is a novel by Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and academic Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees...

. The book relates further matters in the life of the main character, Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld

Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld (character)

Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is the main character in a series of short, humorous novels by Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith.In the books, Von Igelfeld is:*a "Professor Dr";...

, following on from the first book of the series, Portuguese Irregular Verbs.

The Professor is a troubled German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 academic whose life's achievement is the (fictional) book, Portuguese Irregular Verbs.

The book relates details of his troubled relationships with the other major characters of the book series, Professor Dr Dr (honoris causa) Florianus Prinzel and Professor Dr Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer, all at the fictional Institute of Romance Philology at Regensburg, Germany; and, especially, the outcomes of von Igelfeld's academic journey to the University of Arkansas

University of Arkansas

The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...

 while staying at Fayetteville, Arkansas

Fayetteville, Arkansas

Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...

.

The book has five chapters:

1. The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
2. A Leg to Stand on
3. On the Couch
4. The Bones of Father Christmas
5. The Perfect Imperfect

The illustrations are by Iain McIntosh.

Book Series

This is one book of a series:

• Portuguese Irregular Verbs (2003)
• The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (2003)
• At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (2003)

External links

• Author's page at Random House publishers