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Avg. Customer Review: 
 Demystifying Detection on the Edge of the Kalahari
I can think of no better book for someone to read as their introduction to detective fiction. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency combines heart-warming values, love, a spunky female protagonist, African wildlife and every day problems into a delightful social commentary on the dangers and foibles of vanity and wealth. Along the way, there are little problems to be solved, little in terms of Sherlock Holmes perhaps, but not so little in terms of the lives of the people in Botswana. The structure of the book is a little unusual for detective fiction. The main focus is on the life of Mma Precious Ramotswe, a round women in her late thirties with a failed marriage behind her, who starts a storefront detective agency with the money her father left her when he died. Botswana doesn't have any other private detectives, and women usually have circumscribed roles in the society. But Precious knows that women notice more than men, and should make good detectives. Her father had hoped, instead, that she would buy an existing business. Like most new business people, she worries about going broke. She knows that first impressions count, so she buys and spruces up a building . . . and hires a secretary she cannot afford. In the first month, the secretary's salary comes to more than Precious' income. But as time passes, clients come to Precious with their problems. Many are related to concerns about the fidelity of a husband. Two involve missing persons. Another looks at a teenage rebellion. One seems like a psychiatric problem -- a doctor who alternates between being brilliant and incompetent. These cases become like short stories built inside the novel. Each story has a particularly rich African heritage . . . as does the flashback into her father's life as a miner. Precious is a common sense detective. She doesn't use advanced technology. She hasn't had any formal training. But she's dogged and willing to learn, and has an imaginative way of getting to the truth. By her sex, her locale and her heritage, Precious is an underdog. But she's an underdog who was raised with lots of love, and knows a good person when she sees one. By the African standards of her neighbors, she's relatively well-to-do . . . but life is a struggle because of attitudes towards women. Anyone who feels that women can do anything they set their minds to will be cheering Precious on. While this book may not sound cerebral, several of the mysteries (especially the man who disappeared while going to church, the strange doctor and the missing boy) have very sophisticated plot twists and confrontations with key witnesses that remind me of the best of the Perry Mason mysteries . . . except they are set in Botswana. In the background, there's an emerging love interest between precious and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni (who keeps her van running smoothly and helps in some of the mysteries) that spices up the book. Anyone who reads this book with an open heart and mind will want to continue with the series. As I finished this book, I found myself thinking about what views we all share today in the United States about what people can and cannot do that are false in reality. Every time I see "disabled" athletes performing tasks that I would never dare to do, I realize that our limitations are in our minds. Dare to do what you were born to do! And lead with a loving heart.
Number One Heroine; Fascinating Setting
This is an unpretentious book, in size and scope, but its entertainment value is immense. There are no car chases or shoot-outs; no great earth-shattering truths are revealed. The heroine, Smith's "Number One Lady Detective," is in fact Batswana's ONLY lady detective. But she and those she deals with in her brand-new profession--her friends, clients and victims--were enough to keep me turning the pages. Precious Ramotswe is a delight. She is plump, shrewd and opinionated, as at home in her village and her country as Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee is on his reservation. She solves her little mysteries with a logic, dogged resourcefulness and sense of humor that are quietly brilliant. Smith's prose is well-crafted, spare and subtle; he doesn't beat a reader over the head with Africa and its history, but lets us witness both the uniqueness and the universality of Precious' small-town, open-country world through her very human eyes. I'm hooked; I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series. Susan O'Neill, Author: Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam
Not so much of a detective as a loving description of Africa
After the death of her father Precious Ramotswe uses the inheritance to buy herself a house and an office from which she starts the first detective agency in Botswana. Business starts slowly, but she gets a number of clients with problems ranging from missing husbands to fraudulent employees and she starts to build up a reputation leading to new clients. The book describes some of the cases that Mma Ramotswe solves, but the real star of the book is Africa: there are long, loving descriptions of the nature, the people, the culture and the life in Africa and anybody who has been to Africa (and subsequently loves the continent despite all its problems) can use this book to refresh their memories and long back to those real African nights. Don't read this as a detective but as a book about Africa.
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