MyWeku

We interviewed Kwei Quartey the Author of “Wife of the Gods” recently. Dr Quartey  provides us with a taste of what is to come in his next mystery novel Children of the Street.

Alexander McCall Smith’s latest No 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel – Double Comfort Safari Club – is published in March 2010.

Both books should keep readers with a passion for mystery set in Africa with African characters salivating! Here’s a brief review of the “The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series.

The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

Alexander McCall Smith loves Botswana, and he has proved it in the most charming way possible, by creating Mma Precious Ramotswe and her world in a series of books, starting with The No 1 Ladies Private Detective Agency.

It is impossible not to fall in love with Mma Ramotswe, a `traditionally built’ lady who opens a detective agency in the city of Gabarone. The ‘ladies’ of the agency title can be taken two ways – to mean Mma Ramotswe and her sidekick Mma Grace Makutsi, and to mean that the ladies of the agency have a special regard for the problems of ladies. But in fact it sums up Mma Ramotswe’s approach – she uses a female mix of intuition and common sense to solve her clients’ problems.

It is equally impossible not to fall in love with Botswana, and the quiet pride and industry of its people, presented with such affection by McCall Smith. In spite of AIDS, alluded to as `that terrible disease’, poverty and drought, the people of Botswana believe their country to be the best in the world, and this is the principle by which Mma Ramotswe lives. Her contentment with her life, her work and her family create a world in which the reader will gladly become lost, returning to one in which not having a second car is a major disaster, with a jolt.

Mma Ramotswe is not an Agatha Christie type of detective. She doesn’t investigate murder and mayhem among the rich, but the everyday concerns of the less prosperous – straying husbands, workplace theft, missing people. She solves the `problems’ (not crimes), in her own unique way, which often just consists of asking direct questions.

To date, there are ten novels in the series, starting with The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, in which Mma Ramotswe opens her business. This is followed by Tears of the Giraffe, Morality for Beautiful Girls, The Kalahari Typing School for Men, The Full Cupboard of Life, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, Blue Shoes and Happiness, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, The Miracle at Speedy Motors and Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.

New characters are introduced as the books progress. Mma Makutsi starts out as Mma Ramotswe’s secretary, but soon advances up the ladder. Mma Makutsi is an acerbic, sharp witted woman with a penchant for new shoes and enormous pride in her secretarial college mark of 97 per cent. By contrast, Mma Ramotswe’s fiancé and later husband, J.L.B. Maketoni, is gentle and kindly, a marked contrast to her first husband, the abusive Note Makoti. Later he adopts two children, Motholeli and Puso, to whom Mma Ramotswe gives the love she was denied when her one and only baby died.

Throughout the series, Mma Ramotswe maintains her good humor in spite of awkward clients, Mr. Maketoni’s breakdown, Mma Makutsi’s meltdowns and even the setting up of a rival detective agency in Gabarone. A good cup of bush tea settles everything, and if all turns out well in the end, it is usually due to good will and common sense.

Alexander McCall’s books are published by Random House and are available from Amazon.

Gail Kavanagh