I have never been to Africa and had never wanted to go until our Books-n-Lunch Club at the Magee Library read Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency several years ago.
That first book in what became a series hooked me to the point that I couldn’t stop reading the novels that followed, and I began to want to see their setting, the small nation of Botswana in the African veldt.
The main character is Precious Ramotswe, her name an indication of how much her beloved “Daddy” treasured her. When her father dies, she uses her inheritance from his small cattle operation to start the first— and only— female-led detective agency in her country.
Mma Ramotswe (“Mma is a term of respect for women in Botswana) chooses this career because she has been successful in solving a few dilemmas for people and is confident she can earn a living as a detective. But she shores up her skills by reading a book she finds on sleuthing — The Principles of Private Detection by Clovis Anderson, which she takes to heart and refers to throughout the novels when she needs help with a case.
Some of her cases consist of family problems like finding missing husbands, searching for wayward daughters, and looking for a kidnapped boy she fears may have been turned over to witch doctors. She uncovers fraud, helps a man atone for the sins of his youth, and discovers a mystery in her own life.
An online magazine that reviewed the series said, “Alexander McCall Smith enriches the stories of his everyday heroes with a profoundly human understanding of man’s weaknesses.”
That’s what makes these cosy mysteries so endearing. The simple but aggravating conundrums that these characters bring to Mma Ramotswe to solve are much more human and relatable than the stomach churning, grisly axe murder-type fare we’ve been fed in the west’s version of a mystery or a psychological thriller.
Precious solves her cases with the wisdom and respect for the foibles of human beings that’s missing in our literary culture where deeply flawed sleuths solve their cases with futuristic technology and complex international intrigue that defy belief.
Precious is decidedly low tech. She charges around the dry Botswana landscape looking for clues in her “tiny white van,” which she admits is a tight fit for her, as she describes herself as a “traditionally built woman.” Being a bit “traditionally built” myself, I appreciate the description.
Her business builds as news of her success rate spreads, and she takes on an assistant, Grace Makutsi, a proud recent graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College, where she scored 97% on her final exam, a fact she smugly injects into every conversation. Grace starts as a secretary and through the other novels progresses to full partner and trusted friend.
In addition to a secretary, Precious gains a suitor, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, master mechanic and owner of the Tlocweng Road Speedy Motors. An able, dignified and kind man, Mr. Matekoni has taken on the care of two orphans. When Precious and Mr. Matekoni marry, he brings the children into their home, which helps Mma to get over losing a child of her own from her first marriage.
In her youth, she had succumbed to the charms of a popular musician, the seductive but violent Note Makoti. After he beats her during pregnancy, Precious loses their first child soon after birth and divorces him. Perhaps this is where she learns her empathy for the mistakes of others— from her own experience with deception.
There’s a simplicity and a celebration of the order and morality of life in these stories that borders on the tone of a children’s book except that what we feel as we read is a nostalgia for simpler times of honesty and honor in adults—what Precious calls “the old Botswana morality” that she lives by.
I read the first 14 books over a period of time. They are quick reads. Then, thinking that Smith had finished the series, I didn’t look for any more of them. But when I checked online recently, lo and behold, he had added 11 more titles!
These books should be read in order. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency has to be read first for setting and background, and the same characters populate the other novels, so you have to read them sequentially to keep up with their development.
The most recent title in the series is The Great Hippopotamus Hotel (2024). Now how can I resist a title like that?
I will check the library first for the new titles, but the books are available online very reasonably.
And DON’T succumb to the temptation to watch the BBC or HBO dramatizations of these novels. Much of the treasure of these books is in their printed language so don’t cheat yourself.
I may not be up for trip to Botswana, but I will certainly be putting another No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book under my reading lamp soon!
