A Conspiracy of Friends is the third online novel by Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No.

[1] The concept for the Corduroy Mansions series is based on Charles Dickens’ episodic writing, novels that were serialised through journals in weekly or monthly instalments, in the 1800s.

Following a meeting with acclaimed San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin, Alexander McCall Smith pursued this method of writing in 2004 with his novel 44 Scotland Street.

The project is a collaboration between Telegraph Media Group, Little Brown and Polygon (the fiction imprint of Birlinn).

The main characters are Barbara Ragg, Basil Wickramsinghe, Berthea Snark, Caroline Jarvis, Dee Binder, Eddie French, Freddie de la Hay, Jenny Hedge, Jo Partlin, Marcia Light, Oedipus Snark, Terence Moongrove, and William French.