The story revolves around a fictitious building in a real street in the author's home city of Edinburgh With its multiple-occupancy flats, Scotland Street is an interesting corner of the New Town, verging on the Bohemian, where haute bourgeoisie rubs shoulders with students and the more colourful members of the intelligentsia This book tackles issues of trust and honesty, snobbery and hypocrisy, love and loss, but all with great lightness of touch