In the company of cheerful ladies

Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of 'traditional build', is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea which is made by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle, and by a spectacular disagreement between her assistant, Mma Makutsi, and one of the apprentices at the garage. This apprentice has found a fancy girlfriend who drives a Mercedes-Benz. How can he be rescued from his folly? And as for Mma Makutsi, she has found a dancing class, and a man who may not be able to dance very well, but who admires her greatly. And all of this happens against a background of quiet sessions of bush tea, and of a land that stretches out forever under mile upon mile of empty sky& Forget the library the body is in the mud hut. An African Miss Marple created by a Scottish lawyer . . . superb -Sunday Times. 'There is something almost divinely appealing about the way Alexander McCall Smith writes about daily life in Botswana&it is hard to think of a contemporary writer more genuinely engaging&(his) novels are also extremely funny: I find it impossible to think about them without smiling' -Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday