Book Review: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Written By E.A. Blair Jr.
January 21th, 2010

This writing is the first effort that is hoped will peak, prod and poke readers' interest in the considered subjects. I will range widely in my choices of consideration both for my own entertainment and the reader's. I will shun boredom and hopefully engage the reader's interest and appetite for examination.

The first work off the shelf is The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.This is a most improbable book about an improbable character named Precious in an improbable African country of Botswana. The particular oddness of the main character's career choice, namely becoming a detective on the outskirts of the Kalahari, is at once engaging and illustrates the sly cleverness of the author.

It is evident early that Precious Ramotswe has special, unique qualities. She is clever in her schooling, always persistent in endeavors and trusting of others. Her nature is pure and some of life's lessons are necessarily hard.

At the age of thirty-four Precious's father, Daddy, dies. Daddy has labored many years in the mines of South Africa. Daddy has accumulated wealth, which in Africa is most often associated with cattle. By selling the cattle, Precious creates the Agency. She begins without experience, without a business plan but engages the public by confidently painting the sign by way of introduction: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Precious is a woman of generous proportion whose primary desire is to solve people's problems.

Precious is smart, clever and ethically pure. Her detective work involves other people's problems but is also a journey of self discovery. Her work considers assumed identities, stolen vehicles, even stolen children in the struggles of life and death. As more clients come to the Agency, Precious becomes increasingly sensitive and engaged in the lives of the people around her. Her casework leads Precious to broader detective considerations.

This book, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, could not have been written by anyone unfamiliar with Africa and its incredible people. The author was born in what is now Zimbabwe, lived in Botswana and now resides in Scotland. The Agency is the first in a series of six novels featuring Precious Ramotswe. Smith's own words read aloud illustrate his sensitivity and talent:

“He followed her inside. She poured him a beer and they went together to her favourite place to sit, on the verandah, near the bougainvillaea. Not far away, in a neighbouring home, music was being played, the insistent traditional rhythms of township music. The sun went, and it was dark. He sat beside her in the comfortable darkness and they listened, contentedly, to the sounds of Africa settling down for the night. A dog barked somewhere; a car engine raced and then died away; there was a touch of wind, warm dusty wind, redolent of thorn trees. He looked at her in the darkness, at this woman who was everything to him---mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding, good things to eat, 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."

Stay well, E.A. Blair, Jr.

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