This was a heartwarming, cozy mystery of a read that takes place in Botswana and stars a completely sympathetic and lovable character, Mma "Precious" Ramotswe.

Mma Ramotswe is a strong protagonist that opens her own detective agency and we get to see her solve a series of little mysteries as she gets her feet wet being a novice detective. The story sometimes delves into darker territory as we get glimpses of her past up until now and she gets saddled with a request to solve a more sinister crime. But, the book is peppered with a number of smaller investigations and I appreciated that most of the tales were lighter fare, interesting, and unpredictable. Subtle humor also comes through often in the read.

The setting of Botswana really comes to life, flawlessly transporting us to the location and the narrator, Lisette Lecat, delivered the story perfectly (audiobook version).

I definitely recommend if you want a cozy mystery couched in a unique setting.

Available on Scribd.

As research for a novel I'm writing, I'm reading detective fiction and ripping off everything of value. My story takes place in L.A. of the early '90s, but I'm traveling to all eras and hiring all types of sleuth as tour guide. Published in 1998, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency launched twenty novels and counting by Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith based in Botswana and centered around Mma "Precious" Ramotwse, a young woman who opens the country's first private detective agency run by ladies. The book is leisurely and episodic, much like the arid sub-Saharan land of the story. I felt as if the day was too hot for excitement and I was stopping for a sip of water and gossip before moving on.

The book unfolds as a series of vignettes. Ramotwse is living with her cousin and her cousin's husband and working at the bus company they operate. She possesses a sharp mind for figures and as a child, developed an aptitude for drawing and for observation as well. She is close with her father, visiting him in their nearby hometown of Gaborone each weekend. A widowed miner, he dies leaving her a herd of cattle which Ramotwse sells at a handsome sum to open the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, as well as purchase a white van she uses on her cases, and a house, where she lives alone, having decided that one marriage was enough.

I found that Ramotwse to be a very feminine character without the author making her gender a central focus. Oh, look at how cute this is, a sassy lady with a stylish purse chasing bad guys. Ramotwse is a detective, not a lady detective. I can see why the series took off. Ramotwse is someone I'd love to hang out with, sip some bush tea and chat up. Smith structures a lot of time for hanging out in this book.

The southern African setting is picturesque and offers a stunning contrast to the Los Angeles or London worlds where most fictional detectives lurk. The cases that Ramotwse lands say something about the country. Botswana is a place where disappearing husbands end up in the bellies of crocodiles, the new trauma doctor from Nairobi is an imposter and a boy is abducted by men who need someone to look after cattle.

Smith adds a lot of color to the proceedings. My favorite part in the whole book involves Ramotwse encountering a snake that shoots across a road and she runs over with her van without thinking. The problem is she can't find the serpent anywhere and has to assume it's crawled into the van. While Ramotwse climbs out and flags down help, she tries to recall what the snake looked like and concludes that it is a cobra.

The encounter with the cobra is The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It's a delicious treat for the sake of being a delicious treat. The cobra doesn't fit into any story. The cobra isn't a clue that helps Ramotwse solve a mystery. The cobra doesn't belong in the novel. It's like when Mom told me I couldn't eat any candy because dinner was in an hour. Smith is gobbling lots of candy here and spoils his appetite for a healthier and more satisfying meal.

Smith's prose often seemed like a translation to me, and not in a good way. It is very on-the-nose, very obvious. I got the sense that Smith overstated the obvious at times to pad his word count and get enough paragraphs in for a novel.

Mma Ramotswe had thought that it would not be easy to open a detective agency. People always made the mistake of thinking that starting a business was simple and then found there were all sorts of hidden problems and unforeseen demands. She had heard of people opening businesses that lasted four or five weeks before they ran out of money or stock, or both. It was always more difficult than you thought it would be.

And this is a chapter opening, expensive real estate in a novel. This is space I want to discover something I don't know, not read stuff I already know.

Smith devotes Chapter 2 to Ramotwse's father, writing in the father's voice about his experiences in the diamond mines of South Africa. This choice baffled me. Arthur Conan Doyle didn't introduce Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and then spend Chapter 2 on the life and times of Mrs. Hudson. Fortunately, the rest of the book is about Ramotwse without any other characters shoving her off stage.

There were several false starts in the book. I felt like the genre Smith was writing as well as good storytelling demanded Ramotswe meeting a client and going off on a case right from the start and through that, the character’s past and how she started a detective agency could be revealed. Characters she meets could provoke that information from her. Smith didn’t need to tell me about Ramotwse winning an art contest in school or her ex-husband.

I also didn't prefer Smith building Ramotwse up as unmarried--most of the great fictional detectives I can think of just don’t have a spouse or children waiting for them to come home--only to update her marital status to “engaged” at the very end . I'm sure many of his readers were delighted by this but it felt like a cop out to me. Ramotwse seemed more complex as an independent who’s too dedicated to detective work and also too hurt to settle down. Even in a cozy mystery, that was too cozy for me.

Ramotwse is not only an African woman, but a big African woman. The sage advice of "my" writing instructor Malcolm Gladwell rang in my ears here. Smith doesn't worry about writing a better mystery novel than anyone else and doesn't try. What he does is write a different mystery novel than anyone else and on that count he succeeds wildly. If you asked me for a recommendation for a detective series set in Africa, his books would be it.

In 2008, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency landed on the small screen as a BBC production in conjunction with HBO. The 109-minute pilot was adapted by Anthony Minghella & Richard Curtis and directed by Minghella, who divided audiences over his Oscar-winning The English Patient. Six one-hour episodes followed. Jill Scott was supremely well cast as Ramotwse and Anika Noni Rose as her secretary Grace Makutsi.

I have to confess it was my first cozy mystery, which will not be my last. I enjoyed this book, but I think I read about Africa and feminism more than a mystery book, each mystery case was short, yet this wasn't bad at all. Precious Ramotswe was a nice, intelligent number one ladies' detective who hired to spy on badass husbands (most of the time) and solved puzzles in a simple, fun way.

I loved this from start to finish - it was the perfect read for the current quarantine: highly entertaining, humorous, it tugs at your heartstrings, and it's very informative, as well.

Of course it probably has all kinds of flaws, but nothing that bothered me. Don't expect a tense thriller: this is an episodic cozy mystery that tells the story of our lovable female detective, her father's life story, and several different cases involving various kinds of fraud, crocodiles, kidnapped children, giant cobras getting stuck in your car, forbidden boyfriends, and outsmarting the bad guys without being heartless (in fact, Mma Ramotswe lets a few of the not-so-baddies off without any punishment worse than a stern talking-to). I particularly enjoyed the characters - all of whom seemed to leap off of the page because they felt so alive and unique. Getting to know Botswana and its cultures and people - all of whom the author clearly loves very much - was wonderful and very informative for me. I can't speak on how authentic the representation is, but it certainly feels well-researched and deeply empathetic (and the author was born there and lived there for a long time).

I can also highly recommend the audiobook, which not only features very convincing voices for each character, but also several different accents for African languages (including the clicks which I find so hard to pronounce) which just adds even more immersive flavor to the stories.

One thing I should mention: I felt that e.g. the father's life story (he worked in a diamond mine) and other character-focused sections were actually the strongest parts, and the cases and their mysteries, while entertaining, were weaker than this fantastic, moving character work. If you read a lot of mysteries then their plot twists will probably be a little predictable sometimes. But even then, I think this novel is still worth reading just for how well the author conjures milieu and how well he crafts vivid characters that feel like real people. The prose style is unobtrusive - if you want to read very poetic, lyrical prose then this book wouldn't give you what you're looking for. But if you're looking for something that will take you to a (probably, depending on where you live) faraway place and characters that are a joy to spend time with, then I think you'll enjoy this.

In this introductory novel, I fell in love with Precious -- and never looked back. I gobbled all the books in the series, and the only thing left is to list them all here on goodreads in my "already done that" list. Not that I don't go back to them again and again, when I want some good laughs, some good old fashioned "comfort reading". Once again, my daughter hit it out of the ball park when she recommended these books to me all those years ago. It was another overnighter: staying in the big city, and knowing I never slept anymore, she handed me McCall Smith's first in this series. Predictably, I read til dawn and enjoyed every precious moment.

There is more about life here, than there is mystery; more of a how-to manual on how to treat people, how to respect them; less of a whodunnit, and for that it is all the more enjoyable. Precious Ramostswe in Miss Marple, modern, with lots of sass and savvy. 

Now, this is what I call a perfect novel !!!

Overall: 5/5

Title/Cover: 5/5
[Just look at the latest ones. Oh God!]
Language: 5/5
[Succinct. Not a word more, not a word less. And Succulent, you enjoy each sentence in your mouth.]
Story/Plot/Flow: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
[I love Mma Ramotswe. I love her. I love her traditionally built stature, haha. I love her spirit to establish the No. 1 ladies' detective agency and her dedication towards it. Her going out of the box to solve all the cases and her relying solely on her own understanding of men. She can be mean, she can be kind. She may wave off the whole fee, she may charge you a fortune. She is a queen. She doesn't need a man or husband, she herself is a successful, proud lady. And she is happy.]
Climax:: 5/5
[It's a cozy read. And a point comes where you don't want it to finish. Such is the presence of Mma Romatswe, you want to keep reading about her. You don't realize when it ends, and you feel sad to say goodbye to Mma Ramotswe though the story ends on a happy note. Forgive me for this little spoiler.]

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My verdict: From the very first page, I knew I was going to relish this work. First, I never knew much about Africa, particularly about Botswana and now I know, if not a lot, then enough to talk about. The culture, the superstitions, the society, the history and with it a beautiful lady with an ambition to become a No. 1 ladies' detective of the country. I can discuss them nonstop. Author has done a phenomenal job by blending the beauty of Africa and the story of one of its proud daughters, the ever happy detective. Muaah! 5 star.

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For: Readers who enjoy cozy reads with a charming, a funny and yet a very witty central character. Also for those who would love to explore Africa, especially Botswana.
Not for: Not for those who are expecting a hardcore detective novel. It's a light book with lots of humor and comedy and sentiments. The cases that Mma Ramotswe solves are light, are of common people, of daily scuffles of African women with men and each case leaves you in amazement in the end.

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Review [Without Spoiler]:

Mma Ramotswe is a traditionally built African lady who lives in Botswana. Her dream is to establish the finest ladies' detective agency to help women, though she doesn't say no to men either. It's just that she abhors men who think women are dumb and can't be a detective. She loves her father who wanted her to establish her own business. Though she has a horrible past, she is very happy and is proud of the fact that she owns a house and runs a business on her own without a husband. She solves cases. She has an office, a secretary and a little white van to chase criminals. She charges a fee for her work, but according to her sentiments with the client, she may vary the amount. She is happy and she doesn't want to marry. Though many men have proposed her. She rejects all of them politely until..... until... haha find it in the book! Go read!

Favourite lines:

Tomorrow she would be more careful. She would ignore Clovis Andersen and crowd her subject a little more.

She was headstrong, as everybody is at the age of twenty, when we simply cannot see, however much we may think we can. The world is full of twenty-year-olds, she thought, all of them blind.

She had been burdened with several rather mundane cases recently, including a very demeaning one which involved tracing a rich man's dog. A dog!

Could professor Barnard down in Cape Town cure a man whose heart was bleeding, bleeding from loneliness?

A previous owner, a long time ago, had painted designs on the wall, but neglect and the years had scaled them off and only the ghosts remained.

There was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.

Every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map.

If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out.

I love all the books in this series. They are funny and insightful and full of wisdom. I can hardly wait for the next one to come out. These are books I love to read and don't hesitate to recommend to anyone. One friend I recommended them to didn't like them. She said it was like reading a book written for twelve-year-olds (Mr. McCall Smith has written several books for children). Well, maybe that's why I like them; I love to read childrens/young adult fiction!. I wouldn't hesitate to have a twelve year old read them or recommend them to a senior citizen from my church. They have a completely innocent content that is unusual in today's publishing. Yet, they are totally enjoyable.

I'm so glad I gave this series another try. Parts of this book were 5 stars for me, I really enjoyed parts that focused on the characters and their life experiences. Mma Ramotswe is a wonderful strong character and I'm looking forward to getting to know her more through the series. I really enjoyed the gentle escapism this book provides by taking you Botswana and I love the cultural details such as  Mma Ramotswe says she greeted her daddy in the traditional Botswanan way which was a curtsey followed by clapping your hands  As most reviews say, the mysteries aren't the main part of the book but they definitely add something to the story and I love the idea that a woman in Botswana has the bravery to set up a business that in that time and place would be seen as a profession for only men.

I was very surprised to notice these books are written by a man, I expected Mma Ramotswe's character to have been created by a woman and possibly by a Botswanan woman! I'm so looking forward to meeting these characters again in the next story.

Just could not get past the very obvious fact that this book is written by a white guy, trying to tell a story through the eyes of a Botswana(ese?) woman. It felt a bit patronising, as in, look how simply these people live, just hanging out in the hot sun watching their cattle, oh to live so simply like this, oh look this woman is setting up a detective agency, can you imagine that, a woman? A black woman? How quaint and adorable, etc. etc. It was a cute story, but that was the problem, it was all just a bit too cute.

n  "Women are the ones who knows what's going on," she said quietly . "They are the ones with eyes. Have you not heard of Agatha Christie?"n I love Mma Ramotswe. She is funny, wonderful, brave, and unapologetically a feminist. Sure, she's made mistakes. Sure, she's done stupid things, but then again, that just gives her more character. n  Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.n

I was born in Botswana; my parents lived there for about four years together, and my father had lived there for about six years before he got married. And so, for some reason, because I've heard so many stories about life and the people there, things in this book did not come as a culture shock to me. Even such things as finding a cobra in your car, because my father once found a black mamba in his. My parents regaled me with tales of what, according to them, was the nicest country in the world. They told me about the warm people of Botswana, with big hearts, about the easy life there, about the vegetable gardens, about the Kalahari. After all, n  people want to be left alone to look after their cattle.n

And so, reading this book, in some ways was kind of nostalgic, I guess, even though I personally have no memory of anything. But Mma Ramotswe reminded me of every Motswana woman my parents ever told me about - the maid, the cook, the neighbour - large in body and heart, and always willing to help. Sure, the mysteries here aren't really the Sherlock Holmes kinds that we usually read, but smaller mysteries involving cheats and philanderers, and the occasional witchcraft. But then again, that is the point, because Botswana, at least the Botswana portrayed in the book, the Botswana of the by-gone eras, wasn't really much plagued by crimes like rape and murder as it was by crimes like petty theft and fraud. My parents, in fact, recall tales of having had their tyres and/or fuel stolen from their cars in the middle of the night. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is a warm, cosy story written beautifully. The language is simple, as are the characters, but sometimes, there is beauty in simplicity, and this book is an instance of that. Because sometimes, it's just best to admire the simple things in life. Like pumpkin. n  It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.n

***Third read***
4.5 stars. After pushing this series on those close to me countless times, I had given up. Then my husband, out of the blue, decided to try it, needing something light for his commute. So we are reading it together.

I now have a whole new appreciation for this first of the series, which wasn’t my favorite. He noticed things I didn’t, amplified the humor by adding his own, I could go on. Long story short, I loved this book so much more than ever, this time. He is going to alternate this series with Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries (both series have great audiobook narrators), but hopefully we’ll be reading the second book, Tears of the Giraffe: A No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel, soon. Really looking forward to it

When Precious Ramotswe’s father died and left her with his cattle, the sale made her quite wealthy. Her decision to open the first Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana – in fact the only detective agency – was an easy one. And of course, she had to have a secretary, even though she had no clients (as yet). She hired Grace Makutsi and together they enjoyed many cups of tea between the occasional case.

Mma Ramotswe was admired by many, but her intuition and stubborn desire to solve people’s problems saw her succeed in (most of) the cases she was asked to investigate. Would her business be a success and make a profit?

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith was an absolutely delightful experience! I thoroughly enjoyed it and the intelligent humour fits Precious Ramotswe’s character perfectly! An oldie, but a goodie! And I’ll be reading more