The Nature of Things

As the year winds down, I have been catching up on some of the series that I have read faithfully over the years. Now it is time to head off to Botswana to visit with the practitioners at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It is no. 1 and the only ladies' detective agency in Botswana. This is the twentieth entry in this series that has been going since 1998 and I've been reading them for just about that long. This is a mystery series virtually without blood or violence. Instead, the mysteries generally feature a common moral dilemma of the human condition. Dilemmas which allow Precious Ramotswe, the founder and proprietor of the agency a chance to ruminate philosophically and humorously as she considers how to respond to the dilemma. We are always privy to Precious' thoughts throughout the narrative and at one point, she thinks: "The bad behaviour with which No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency was concerned was not really all that bad. They saw selfishness and greed; th...

It's been quite a while since I traveled to Botswana, land of eternal sunshine and many-colored cattle, to have red bush tea with Precious Ramotswe. I was feeling a bit thirsty for that tea and so I decided to check in with Precious and see what was happening in the little town of Gaborone. It turned out Precious had gone into politics! It was a most un-Precious-like thing to do but she had been pushed into it by her great friend Mma Potokwane, head of the local orphanage and a woman who knows how to get people to do her bidding. An opening had come up on the Gaborone city council and the word was out that the council was to soon vote on whether to allow the building of the flashy Big Fun Hotel next to the city cemetery. Mma Potokwane was appalled at this effrontery and disrespect to the "late" people who reside in the cemetery. Mma Ramotswe was equally appalled when her friend told her about it, but she didn't see that there was anything to be done about it. That...

I have been faithfully reading the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series for many years now, but it had been more than two-and-a-half years since I last read one. The time seemed propitious to pick it up once again. A series called "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" might sound like mysteries featuring women detectives and, indeed, on the surface that is how it is styled. But, in fact, it is more philosophy than mystery. McCall Smith has another series that he writes, set in Scotland, that actually features a philosopher named Isabel Dalhousie, but this series, set in Botswana, might just as correctly be called the "No. 1 Ladies' Philosophers."  The main philosopher/detective is Precious Ramotswe and she is ably assisted by her partner, Grace Makutsi. The starting point of each story involves their being presented with a puzzle surrounding some simple everyday problem. It might be someone pilfering from his employer, a straying husband or wife...

Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed by the rudeness, unthinking and unthinkable cruelties, and selfishness of the world that we live in, I like to take a break from it all by visiting Botswana. There, I can sit in the shade of a tree and drink red bush tea with Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi and listen to Precious expound on her philosophy of life and her view of what is important. For example, there is her rumination about the past: There were too many people who took the view that the past was bad, that we should rid ourselves of all traces of it as soon as possible. But the past was not bad; some of it may have been less than perfect - there had been cruelties then that we had done well to get rid of - but there had also been plenty of good things. There had been the old Botswana ways, the courtesy and the kindness; there had been the attitude that you should find time for other people and not always be in a desperate rush; there had been the belief that you should listen to o...

Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith My rating: 5 of 5 stars Emma is one of my, and I think most Austen fans', favorites among the Austen oeuvre. That busybody controlling snob, Emma, is one of Jane Austen's most insightful, acerbic, and exasperating characters. She is a privileged little rich girl who believes she knows what is best for everyone around her and constantly schemes to order their lives in the manner that she believes is best for them. One feels the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake really hard while saying, "Get a grip, Emma! People have a right to live their own lives as they see fit!" But, of course, if she didn't interfere, we wouldn't have had that wonderful character and that wonderful book. It takes a very brave writer, I think, to take on the task of rewriting that much-loved book, but that is exactly what Alexander McCall Smith has done. He accepted Emma as his assignment in the Austen Project which gave modern...

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith My rating: 4 of 5 stars Time for another visit with my friend Precious Ramotswe. Time spent with her always makes me feel as if I am walking in sunshine. Mma Ramotswe/Alexander McCall Smith has a particularly generous and benevolent view of human nature. Slow to condemn even the most seemingly egregious behavior, Precious always looks for that kernel of goodness in every human being with whom she comes in contact. This is remarkable because she is the proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana - the only detective agency in Botswana - and that profession often brings her in contact with some rather shady characters. Precious Ramotswe has never had a holiday, but in The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine , the people who love her are conspiring to convince her that it is time she took one. Chief among the conspirators is her assistant Grace Makutsi who is eager to be in sole charge of the detective agency while ...

The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (15) by Knopf Canada My rating: 4 of 5 stars Precious Ramotswe's ruminations while driving her tiny white van around Gaborone and seeing a cow and calf standing under a tree: We could stand under trees too, and look about us, and think about things. Not only could we do that, she thought, but we should. It was called meditation - she knew that - but she did not consider that we needed a special word for standing under a tree and thinking. People had been doing that well before meditation was invented. There were many things, she reflected, which we had been doing as long as anybody could remember and which had suddenly been taken up by fashionable enthusiasts and given an unnecessary new name. Mma Ramotswe had been invited to a Pilates class in a local church hall; it would be of great benefit to her, she had been told. But when she had gone to the class and seen what Pilates was, she had realised that she did...

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Reading a No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel is like being in the presence of an old and well-known, well-loved friend. It's a warm hug from a someone who knows just when you really need that hug. These books are classified as mysteries, but they might as easily be called philosophy, because they are filled with Precious Ramotswe's ruminations on life, on what makes people behave as they do, on her beloved Botswana, on Africa. All of the "mysteries" that she is called on to solve are, at their core, puzzles of human nature and why one person seeks to cause mischief for another. There are no car chases, no gunfights, no bloodshed. There is simply Mma Ramotswe meditating on the personalities of those involved in her current cases and using common sense and her well-honed instinct to sort through all the motives and possibilities to a logical conclusion. The great Sherlock could not do more.   As this book opens, we learn that Mma Ramotswe...

It's always such a pleasure to pick up a new No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel. Spending time in the company of Precious Ramotswe is like being with an especially kind and understanding and positive old friend who may know your faults and weaknesses but who loves you anyway. It is like a refreshing cup of tea at the end of a trying day. The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection  is the thirteenth in this series, and, in my opinion, it is one of the very best. The pages slipped by much too fast for me. I was very sorry to bid goodbye (for another year or so anyway until Mr. McCall Smith can crank out another one) to Mma Ramotswe at the end. As always, the mysteries that beset Precious here are of a commonplace nature. A young man, the best of the apprentices at her husband's Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors garage, is wrongly accused of dealing in stolen goods and is arrested. Mma Ramotswe's old friend, Mma Potokwane, who has devoted her life to caring for the orphans of Bo...