The Exquisite Art of Getting Even is a book of four stories by Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith. Before introducing each story with an explanation of how it came to be, he muses on revenge: we shouldn’t confuse it with justice or reciprocity, a balancing of scales. While it is a fascinating subject, revenge doesn’t achieve social peace, but has more a personal purpose than simple retribution. Exacting revenge usually increases the total human suffering, and much more desirable, and effective for the victim’s recovery, as the last story demonstrates, is forgiveness and mercy.

Vengeance Is Mine: When the man known as Rob Roy McCoy arrives on the Isle of Mull with his architect and interior designer, to view his newly purchased estate, a warm welcome from the locals is conspicuously absent. That doesn’t bother him, as he drives around in the fancy fire-engine-red Bentley Continental that few believe could have been bought with honest money. When he breaks it off with his girlfriend by text, in favour of the designer, he might just have underestimated what the woman scorned might do, and how she might achieve that.

The Principle of Soap: David Thoreau has known from a young age that he’s destined to be an actor. Once he has managed to convince his parents of this, he departs his country town and enrols in the Roger Dare Acting Studio in Melbourne. He meets other students: Henry’s talent is probably not in acting, but he’s a top bloke, all the same; Virginia can certainly act, but her derision of Henry’s ability, and her belittling of Henry’s girlfriend, annoy David.
Years later, after the required time as a waiter, David is a successful TV soap actor when a tragic event brings him in contact with Virginia again. She proves not to have mellowed, having, rather, retained and perhaps increased the volume of her nastiness in the interval. David’s career is suddenly in jeopardy. Do Virginia’s machinations succeed?

Monty, Tiger, Rose etc: Even though her best friend told her that Colin Fanshaw is a boring accountant, he ticks quite a lot of Rose’s boxes, and they marry. A generous gift from her father sees them in a very nice house in Balerno. On one side the neighbours are great, but the other side… Ray and Tiger have a Rottweiler-cross named Monty that is disobedient, barks at night wrecking Colin’s much-needed sleep, demolishes Rose’s garden, and makes them feel unsafe. His owners don’t care. Then a chance remark sees Rose doing something uncharacteristically vindictive. The result turns out to be a lot more extreme than she expects, leading to much angst and guilt. But are things quite what they seem?

One, Two, Three: Not long after Sam begins his English Literature study at Durham, he falls hard for someone he simply can’t have. Philosophical, he resigns himself to this unrequited love, but he does make a good friend. Years on, he’s working for a publishing house, editing the works of successful, but highly objectionable, author, Brock Maxwell. He makes an unfortunate remark that has far-reaching effects. Sam isn’t the only one offended by Maxwell: when he witnesses an act of revenge taking place, he has a choice to make.

These four stories that feature revenge in a variety of settings but, as fans of the author well know, anything that McCall Smith writes is bound to have the reader thinking and, often, also laughing. Delightful.