Alexander McCall Smith

Features two stand-alone BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Working in Gaborone, Botswana, Precious Ramotswe investigates several local mysteries, including a search for a missing boy and the case of the clinic doctor with different personalities for different days of the week.

Srijita Sarkar 

Any time he tried to tell her what was in his heart, the words which came to him seemed so inadequate.

He looked at her in the darkness, at this woman who was everything to him—mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding, good things to cat, pumpkins, chicken, the smell of sweet cattle breath, the white sky across the endless, endless bush, and the giraffe that cried, giving its tears for women to daub on their baskets; O Botswana, my country, my place.

You can go through life and make new friends every year—every month practically—but 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.

What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass?

Why did love—and sex—complicate life so much? It would be far simpler for us not to have to worry about them.

Masculine bad behaviour. "Men do terrible things."

Love was a form of blindness that closed the eyes to the most glaring faults

And my wife had brought her to meet me off the bus. She stood there, with the child in her arms, the child who was more valuable to me than all the gold taken out of those mines in Johannesburg. This was my firstborn, and my only child, my girl, my Precious Ramotswe.

Sarah Sammis

The book's best chapters are the ones where Mma Ramotswe is investigating crimes. She clearly has a natural talent at reading people, their motives and their ways of thinking. If the book were just a series of small vignettes with a larger mystery woven between them, it would be a perfect cozy mystery. Unfortunately, Smith chooses to water down the plot with unnecessary chapters of back story that break up the rhythm of the story. I nearly put this book down a half dozen times until the story finally picked up and decided to stick with the detective stories.

Laura Mauler

Colleen

2 Stars
 
*A fractured set of stories lacking cohesion and the excitement of the usual whodunit*

**This review contains minor spoilers that are not hidden**


The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series has been recommended to me by a couple of people. It is another series that I have been meaning to read for several years. I like having light whodunit mysteries to read in between heavier books. And the setting in Botswana as well as the main character being the first female detective in her country sounded great. But I ended up struggling to stay interested in this book.

The synopsis was misleading. Rather than being a typical mystery, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is basically a set of loosely connected short stories about Precious Ramotswe. The stories are told in non-chronologically and jumped all over the timeline. It was hard to follow. The book lacked any solidarity or plotting. I kept waiting for things to tie together or for there to be a typical climax, but this really only a series of short stories. And it was too bare bones. The segments resulted in little more than tiny vignettes with no real meat to them.

There also isn't much mystery to the story. A few cases are mentioned but they were so brief that they never felt like mysteries to be solved. Mma Ramotswe gets a client, the situation of the case is explained, she pokes around for a day or two, then easily finds whatever answer or solution for which she was looking. That is it. This is not a whodunit.

Perhaps if there had been better character development, it would have made up for the lack of mystery. But other than the main character, the rest of the cast is made up of many characters that are mentioned but never fleshed out. Ramotswe’s character also seemed extremely inconsistent because of the way the story jumped across decades without initially explaining what caused her drastic shifts in personality. Even when some of the gaps were filled in, her character still felt too mercurial. It was hard to say which was more lacking: the character development or the plot. They were both markedly absent.

My expectations of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency also decreased by enjoyment of this book. This was described to me as more of a cozy mystery, so I was unpleasantly surprised by the domestic violence in the story. It was particularly unpalatable that the abuse was presented so matter-of-factly – as if all men are abusive philanderers and all women secretly like it. The narrative flat out said Mma Ramotswe liked being abused and was excited by it. Those sections of the story portrayed her character completely differently than the rest of the book, and the two versions of her did not interlock. The air of inevitability and blind acceptance of this abuse were entirely repulsive and soured the whole story. 

In the end, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency felt like a rough draft that simply did not have enough substance. There were some good ideas, and I liked having a setting other than the typical English or American locale. But the plot was too fractured and the characters lacked growth. There is a part of me that is curious to see if the series improves. But most of me is eager to cross this series off my list and not return.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 1 Star
Writing Style: 2 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 2 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 2 Stars
Level of Captivation: 2 Stars
Originality: 2 Stars

a slow boring boring badly written book. There were 20 pages about her father working in a mine which ended up having no relevance to the story. I was very close to dnf but thought there must be a reason it is so highly rated. I unfortunately could not find it. It did pick up slightly towards the end and Precious did end up being very likeable which helped but overall would not say it is worth reading

Maria Davis 

Stephanie Honour

How did this book make the National Bestseller list? It's light, fluffy, entertaining...and...simple. Quite simple. For a book involving a detective agency, there were no intense moments or page-turning events. Its best feature is the rapidity with which one can read it. Perhaps it's the African-set equivalent of the Shopaholic books? Meh.

Tracie McMurray

My mom likes this series, so I read the first one this weekend. I really liked it, so I will continue with the series!

Yulande Lindsay

Precious Ramotswe is now one of my top ten female protagonists. Loved this book.

Barbara Williford

Love this series! What a well written, wholesome read full of short little mysteries that the only Lady Detective in Botswana can solve. I love the cases she solves but I also love the African history and love of country that is instilled in these books. They are quick reads and a must!

Sarah Escorsa

What a delighful book! I read it in one sitting and really enjoyed both the characters and the story.

Kelsi Proulx

I give this one 3.5 stars.

I really enjoyed reading about Africa and Mma Ramotswe's character. However, I don't know if I would necessarily categorize this as a mystery novel. While Mma Ramotswe opens a private detective agency and spends most of her time solving mysteries, they are short (1 chapter each) and easy to solve. I feel like the chapters were written as individual short stories with the same main character (almost like Sherlock Holmes). 

I do think I will continue with the series though, it was a fun and easy read overall.

Meredith Rose

I really enjoyed the first book of this series. It was different than I expected it to be, but I enjoyed Mma Ramotswe's wit and confidence - she's a great character! 

I'm so excited that I got this book signed by Alexander McCall Smith at the Texas Book Festival a few weeks ago, and I can't wait to continue reading the series!

Ruby Huber

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.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

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