
This-along with the kindness, generosity, and good sense for which the No. Faced with more than her fair share of delicate dilemmas, Mma Makutsi deals with it all with her usual graciousness. It will require not only all of their persistence and dedication but also help from an unexpected quarter to find a solution that will make everyone happy. She and Phuti agree to take Patience and Modise in and lend a hand, but things don't work out quite as intended, and the situation proves difficult for them to handle.

Meanwhile, Grace is approached by an old friend who has a troubled son. To make matters worse, they have a slick new advertising campaign that seems hard to beat. Phuti has always been concerned with quality and comfort, but this firm seems interested only in profits. An international firm is attempting to undercut his prices in the office furniture market.

#NO 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY IN ORDER HOW TO#
"An escape from life's woes as well as a suggestion for how to make the whole deal more palatable-fragility, fruit cake, and all." -The Boston Globe Grace Makutsi's husband, Phuti Radiphuti, is in a bind. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Grace Makutsi encounters a pair of quandaries that will require all of her and Mma Ramotswe's cleverness and generosity to resolve.

#NO 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY IN ORDER SERIES#
Maybe those of you who are familiar with Alexander McCall Smith’s work can tell me if it’s necessary to read this series in order or if you can just dip in and out.In this latest installment in the beloved No. I haven’t been left wanting to rush out and buy all the other books in the series, but I would be happy to try another one at some point. And yet, somehow, it does work! I really enjoyed getting to know Mma Ramotswe and picking up a little bit of knowledge of a country I previously knew nothing about. The novel is disjointed and messy and, apart from one slightly more involved case to which we return several times throughout the book, there is no overarching plot. Sometimes she makes mistakes, but more often than not she is successful and proves that those who tell her women can’t be detectives are most definitely wrong!Īs well as the mysteries, there are also chapters relating earlier episodes in Mma Ramotswe’s life, descriptions of Botswana – its scenery, its wildlife and its people – and some insights into African culture. Mma Ramotswe takes a practical approach to her detective work, based around common sense and logic, and following the guidance of The Principles of Private Detection by Clovis Andersen. They are not particularly complex – I often managed to solve them myself, which is unusual for me – and deal mainly with cheating husbands, rebellious teenagers and cases of insurance fraud, for example, rather than more serious crimes. This is not a straightforward detective novel with one central mystery to be solved instead, there are lots of separate little mysteries, with only a few pages devoted to some of them, although a few are longer. They do come, eventually, and Mma Ramotswe finds herself with an intriguing selection of cases to investigate.

She hangs a sign above the door, employs a secretary, then sits back and waits for clients. When her father dies, leaving his herd of cattle to Precious, she sells them and uses the money to buy herself a house and an office which becomes the headquarters of her very own detective agency. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is set in Botswana and features thirty-four-year-old Mma Precious Ramotswe. It didn’t help that whenever I noticed some on the library shelf, they tended to be the later books in the series and my personal preference is always to start at the beginning if possible…so when I had the chance, earlier this year, to read the first book in the series via NetGalley, I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally see what it was like. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books seem to have been around forever, but I have never really felt tempted to try one.
