I really enjoyed this one. The characters, humour, morality, scenery - everything so right, the way things are meant to be.

If I be blunt, the only thing I liked about this book was that it was short, or I would've left it midway. I found the story to be a bit dull and a little to slow paced for my liking.

4★
“There were people who made it their business to remember the affairs of the community, and this was obviously one. Today they called them oral historians, she believed; whereas in reality, they were old women who liked to remember the things that interested them most: marriages, deaths, children. Old men remembered cattle.”

We met Mma Ramotswe and her secretary/“Assistant Detective” Mma Makutsi in the first two instalments of the delightful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. As before, there are a number of problems that present themselves just as the two women are wondering where their next job will come from and how they will keep the business afloat.

Precious Ramotswe is now engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, owner of a local garage and a good man. Not all of the men in Botswana are as kind and courteous as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who is never referred to as anything other than his full name. Mma Ramotswe’s first husband was a jazz musician and a thoroughly rotten character.

Mma Ramotswe and her fiancé Mr J.L.B. Matekoni at his garage (from the TV series, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1356380/...)

“Mma Ramotswe accepted her large slice of cake and looked at the rich fruit within it. There were at least seven hundred calories in that, she thought, but it did not matter; she was a traditionally built lady and she did not have to worry about such things.”

She is beautiful and Botswana is beautiful. Still hot and dry with men who are obscenely (my word) wealthy, wearing white shoes, while so many others are frighteningly poor and barefoot. Mma Ramotswe is generally suspicious of the former and inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the latter, and she has some fixed ideas about how the world works.

“Men were good at business, thought Mma Ramotswe, but women were just as good. Women were thriftier by nature; they had to be, trying to run households on a tight budget and feed the ever-open mouths of children. Children ate so much, it seemed, and one could never cook enough pumpkin or porridge to fill their hungry bellies. And as for men, they never seemed happier than when eating large quantities of expensive meat. It was all rather discouraging.”

But she and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stretch their income to help others, particularly a couple of orphans who have moved in with her as well as the woman and her family who live there as housekeeper/cook/nanny. It is a way of life that is common in many parts of the world but foreign to many “Western” cultures, I think, where people pride themselves on being self-sufficient and doing everything themselves.

“if you were in a well-paid job and had a house of the size which Mma Ramotswe did, then not to employ a maid—or indeed not to support several domestic servants—would have been seen as selfishness.”

There are always a few stories in each book, not necessarily connected, other than through the agency, but each is an opportunity for Mma Ramotswe to give Mma Makutsi (and us readers) her philosophy about right and wrong. Sometimes, she’s only just putting it into words for the first time, and I always enjoy watching her think. She is funny and charming and addictive.

There’s a small wild boy who smells of lions; there’s a wealthy beauty pageant operator who wants to make sure the contestants are ‘good’ girls; there’s a rich city-dweller who suspects foul play on the family farm, managed by his younger brother; and of course, there’s the orphanage and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni who seems be feeling a bit low.

His two apprentices and Mma Matekutsi have many funny exchanges, and Mma Matekutsi comes into her own as a detective!

The whole series is a quiet, comfortable retreat. I think of them as leisurely reads. I don’t want to hurry – just revel in Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana for a while.

Another enjoyable offering from an author I greatly admire.

Quiet writing, which only sets one up for something quite poignant or an unanticipated punch line. Here is a small example:

Mma Makutsi snorted. "You made yourself look foolish. Why are you always running after girls? Why are you always trying to impress them?"

"Because that's how I enjoy myself," said the apprentice defensively. "I like talking to girls.We have all these beautiful girls in this country and there is nobody to talk to them. I am doing a service to the country."

Not sure what McCall Smith's series did to pee me off (probably because the first notable African female detective series published is one written by an old Scotsman), but back when I first read this in 2004, I gave this and the subsequent volumes some low Star ratings, when I'm pretty sure I really liked these back in the day [2023 note]
Looking back on this series, I found it enlightening and interesting getting into the nitty gritty of Botswana town life, and reading about the trials and tribulations of a woman trying to set up and run her own detective agency. This instalment sees the main protagonists PI Precious Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi consolidate their business and further underlines the heart and soul of these African women as they have a strange case to investigate, and a need to support someone close suffering from depression. This series just gets better and better, this one's a 6 out of 12, Three Star jam.

2004 read>

Cozy murder mysteries with an African twist. The clever and no-nonsense Mme. Ramotswe rivals Miss Marple or Mrs. Pollifax as The No. 1 Lady detective. Fun, quick, and charming.

What is not to like about Mma Ramotswe? She is able to see things for what they are. I enjoy these books. I especially enjoy that each book ties up all loose ends in a nice little bow for you by the end.

I really enjoyed this installment of Mma Ramotswe's adventures. It was a little less light hearted than the previous two as Mma deals with moving her office, dealing with clients and their problems, finding time to be a parent and trying to discover what is wrong with her fiance, Mr JLB Matekoni. The characters are being developed slowly but surely in this brilliant series so I am looking forward to see where McCall Smith goes with it.

This is a "comfy" or "feel good" kinda series. I love this one the best so far! The writing is smooth and fast and easy, and the stories are wonderful and thoughtful and puts a smile on my face.

Третя книжка із серії про мма Прешес Рамотсве уже здається самопародією. Там все ще ідилічна Ботсвана, приємні й яскраві центральні героїні, ненав'язливі cosy розслідування (в цій книжці навіть ніхто не помер, що для сучасних детективів уже рідкість)... Але щось воно вже не радує. Сценаристи серіалу свою роботу зробили класно. А в книжці забагато моралізування, забагато навмисної екзотизації, забагато уваги до чоловіків та їхніх проблем, з огляду на заявлену тематику. А от опис клінічної депресії як безперечно хвороби та її наслідків для близьких людини, яка на неї страждає, - це книжці плюс у карму.

This series only seems to get gooder and gooder as each book progresses. Delightful, wise, charming and remarkable! Love this series more than my life.

Book Three. As you can see, I love these books! Here are some nuggets:

"Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance. You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so. What gives you the right to say that you know better than your ancestors? Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it. That was what made the modern morality, with its emphasis on individuals and the working out of an individual position, so weak. If you gave people the chance to work out their morality, then they would work out the version which was easiest for them and which allowed them to do what suited them for as much of the time as possible. That, in Mma Ramotswe's view, was simple selfishness, whatever grand name one gave to it." pg 77-78

"Mma Ramotswe liked to help everybody, no matter what their station was in life. She had often been out of pocket on a case, simply because she could not refuse to help a person in need. This is what I am called to do, she said to herself. I must help whomsoever asked for my help. That is my duty: to help other people with the problems in their lives. Not that you could do everything. Africa was full of people in need of help and there had to be a limit. You simply could not help everybody; buy you could at least help those who came into your life. That principle allowed you to deal with the suffering you saw. That was your suffering. Other people would have to deal with the suffering that they, in their turn, came across." pg 116

"She had a taste for sugar, however, and this meant that a doughnut or a cake might follow the sandwich. She was a traditionally built lady, after all, and she did not have to worry about dress size, unlike those poor, neurotic people who were always looking in mirrors and thinking that they were too big. What was too big, anyway? Who was to tell another person what size they should be? It was a form of dictatorship, by the thin, and she was not having any of it. If these thin people became any more insistent, then the more generously sized people would just have to sit on them. Yes, that would teach them! Ha!" pg 214-215