The Discreet Charm Of The Big Bad Wolf is the fourth book in the Detective Varg series by popular British author, Alexander McCall-Smith. In this instalment, our ever-thoughtful and unfailingly kind Swedish detective: attends a school reunion; he also chats with his (secretly beloved) colleague Anna on what constitutes micro-aggression. They muse on courtesy: “I don’t think you can legislate for courtesy. You just have to hope that people will treat one another well. And, by and large, they do.”

Ulf is still embarrassed on a regular basis by his brother Bjorn’s outlandish press statements; Ulf discusses the existence of wickedness; he reflects on universal language, on victimhood, on ingratitude and on absurdity, and he corrects several people on their (often amusing) variations on the title of his Department of Sensitive Crimes. A rather tongue in cheek reference is made to two well-known folk tales, one of which features pigs and wolves.

Ulf defines love: “Love involved a quickening of the pulse, a feeling of yearning. People talked about being filled with love, but Ulf had always thought that was to misdescribe what was felt by one in love. It was emptiness, rather than fullness: a feeling within that there was an inner space, an incompleteness, that could only be filled by the other” and admits that, if he is truthful, his deepest affections lie elsewhere, but he is still hoping love will blossom with his girlfriend of eight months, veterinary nurse Jani.

But when Jani uses emotional blackmail to get Ulf to consider forking out a large sum of money he doesn’t have so that Martin, the only lip-reading dog in Sweden, can have a cochlear implant, it leaves Ulf wishing he was more assertive, more lupine. Like his namesake. When he is introduced to the young handsome veterinary surgeon proposing to do Martin’s surgery, though, Ulf realises that Dr Niklas Wikstrom seems to have caught Jani’s eye.

Ulf brings Blomquist in on the puzzling case of a missing house. The country cottage belonging to a successful pig farmer, whose bacon products are well known, has disappeared. Blomquist is frequently underestimated and often mocked by his colleagues, but has hidden depths and, in this case, demonstrates his resourcefulness and lateral thinking to indeed find the stolen house.

The Commissioner shares the bad news that a reduction in staff is necessary due to budgetary requirements: one of Ulf’s staff in the Department of Sensitive Crimes will have to accept what virtually amounts to a demotion with a transfer to a different (unpopular) department. Ulf handles the situation is a truly novel way, much to the surprise of all his colleagues, and the dismay of some.

At one stage, things are looking very sad for Ulf, but this is Scandi Blanc, and the resolution will restore the reader’s faith in humankind. Whoever wrote the blurb, though, clearly hasn’t read the book. Neither “As the bickering between colleagues intensifies” nor “Anna appears to blame him for an old case that went sideways, putting her own job prospects above their friendship” actually happen. Nonetheless, this is a delightful antidote to heavier reads: philosophy laced with plenty of silliness, irony and not a few turns in the plot. Entertaining, as always.