Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2006, 240 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2007, 240 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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From the book jacket: There is
considerable excitement at The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. A
cobra has been found in Precious Ramotswe’s office. Then a nurse
from a local medical clinic reveals that faulty blood-pressure
readings are being recorded there. And Botswana has a new advice
columnist, Aunty Emang, whose advice is rather curt for Mma
Ramotswe’s taste.
All this means a lot of work for our heroine and her inestimable
assistant, Grace Makutsi, and they are, of course, up to the
challenge. But there’s trouble brewing in Mma Makutsi’s own
life. When Phuti Radiphuti misses their customary dinner date,
she begins to wonder if he is having second thoughts about their
engagement. And while Mma Makutsi may be able to buy that
fashionably narrow (and uncomfortable) pair of blue shoes, it
may not buy her the happiness that Mma Ramotswe promises her
she’ll find in the simpler things—in contentment with the world
and enough tea to smooth over the occasional bumps in the road.
Comment: What can be said about the glorious Mma Ramotswe
that hasn't been said before? Not a lot really - but having been
one of the first (possibly the first) USA-based websites to
recommend this series (before it was even available in the USA)
it just doesn't seem right to allow a volume in the series to go
unnoted - because a day or two in the company of McCall Smith's
'traditionally built' protagonist makes the world look just that
little bit sunnier, by reminding us that pleasure can be found
in the smallest of things!
McCall Smith, known to his friends as Sandy, began the now
highly successful 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series in 1996,
after being inspired by the sight of a 'traditionally built'
Botswanan lady chasing down a chicken for a meal. The first book
in the series - 'The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency' was
published in the UK in 1998 but didn't arrive in the USA until
2001.
The eighth in the series, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive,
has just been released in hardcover in the UK, and will be out
in the USA next month. For some time McCall Smith has been
saying that he will cap the series at eight books, and The
Good Husband is No. 8 - so, sadly, this may well be the last
we'll hear from Mma Ramotswe.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in April 2006, and has been updated for the
March 2007 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
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