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Summary: LOVED THIS BOOK!
Review: I just loved this book. It will quietly draw you in and take you to another world. I went to Botswana for a brief trip last year and fell in love with the country and I love reading McCall's descriptions and his own love for his country through Precious. This is not a book full of wild, bloody action, so if you're looking for that, you will be disappointed. Rather this is a wonderful escape from the harried world of the U.S., written with charm and love with characters that are fresh and that you wish you could meet in real life. I read the Tears of the Giraffe last week too and it was even better, introducing more wonderful characters.
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Summary: The best writing I've encountered all year
Review: In more 'traditional' detective novels, the detective is an embittered, experienced, cynical witness to the seamy side of society (in addition to being--most likely--male and Causcasian). The remarkable Precious Ramotswe is none of those things. Precious is a portly-but-dignified, 38-year-old lady living in Botswana with absolutely no detective experience, who takes it into her head to found a detective agency when her father dies and leaves her a little money.Preciouse Ramotswe turns the whole idea of being a detective inside out. Although she does solve cases, they don't seem to be the point of the tale but secondary to Precious herself. And I must say I found her completely compelling. Completely centered and self-assured without being cocky. Size 22 without self-loathing (and with multiple marriage proposals). A great sense of humor and clever without being cynical. It's as though being a detective was a metaphor for taking care of people. Detecting = observing the world around. Observing the world = taking care of the people in it. Detective as mother. Although in parts it is quite funny (the bit where the snake gets snuck under her car), on the whole I found it supremely moving. Alexander McCall Smith mixes Precious' resolution of her cases with lyrical passages describing the Botswana countryside that Preciouse observes as she passes through it in her trusty white van. My only caution is that readers with a taste for complex who-dun-it thickly plotted detective novels will find this VERY different. But anyone else reading this review--anyone that just appreciates wonderful writing--should PLEASE buy this book.
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Summary: Warm hearted investigations of human nature
Review: Precious Mamotswe is a very likeable detective, and this first book is an engaging pleasure, particularly as a light interlude to heavier tombs on the bedstand. The characters are refreshingly original, and I enjoy the armchair trip to Africa. I was somewhat disappointed that the cases tend to appear as a too-short series of vignettes, not enough tangles of threads for my tastes in this genre. Still, I'll likely pick up another in this series when I have an appetite for a light and warm hearted diversion.
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Summary: A Delightful New Detective
Review: Mma Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only female private investigator, should probably have called her agency "No. 1 Lady's," since she's its sole operative. But apart from that grammatical slip, she doesn't miss a trick. A "traditionally built" (read: stout) person creeping up on 40, she decides to enter this field with the money she gains from the sale of her father's cattle after his death. With little more than a desk, a telephone, a typewriter, a small white van, her cleverness and common sense, her loyal secretary Mma Makutsi (who graduated the Botswana College of Secretarial and Office Skills with an average grade of 97%), and the occasional assistance of her good friend, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, she solves cases that range from a freeloading con artist who has tricked an honest woman into believing he is her father, to the abduction for sinister purposes of a young boy by native witch doctors--who have a connection to a very prominent citizen. Smith clearly knows the country and people of which he writes, and succeeds in giving his story a lilting, lyrical flavor that makes the reader feel almost as if she is listening to a story being spun by a native tale-teller. This first of the series bodes well for volumes to follow.
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Summary: Not just a detective story
Review: I bought this book on a whim, having gone into the bookstore with the intention of buying a completely different book. I put that book back and bought No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency instead. I'm not a detective or mystery fan at all. I visited Kenya a few years ago and I hoped this book would bring memories of Africa back.
I can't even say how much I enjoyed this book. Particularly the opening chapters are very good. It's very simple, powerful, very funny too. It gives a view of Southern Africa that only someone who has lived there all his life can give.
My only criticism is a kind of inexperience or clumsiness by McCall Smith towards the end of the book. Foreshadowing which doesn't really deliver. The ending might be a little pat. But there is so much so good about this book that I plan to get the other two in the series and can't wait for the new one next spring!
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Summary: Precious Reads
Review: In Precious Ramotswe, Alexander McCall Smith creates a beguiling character. Precious is a detective, the first female detective in Botswana and owner of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Precious is a middle aged woman with a prominent posterior, whose self image and poetic praise of the simple things in life - like a dish of cooked pumpkin - are arresting to a reader surrounded by urban materialism and Western notions of attractiveness. Through Precious, the reader is willingly enticed into a love affair with the landscape and values and people of Botswana. But Precious is far from a simple woman. The stories about the tragic life of her beloved father, her own disastrous marriage and move into the detective business are all enlivened by her capacity to find lessons from each painful experience. It therefore comes as no surprise that she is a very successful detective. Helped along by her handy and hilarious "how to" text, her undeniable intellect and talent for nosiness, she is soon finding answers where others have not. There are three books in this series and they are all wonderful. Each left me with a smile on my face and a desire to reread some of Precious' wry observations (favourites include those about the sad weaknesses of men and a number about the inferiority of neighbouring African countries) or her poetic descriptions of the world around her. The mysteries - plus their solutions - are also satisfying.
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Summary: Great book, simple summer reading.
Review: Removes you from the bustle of American life and transports you to the dust of Botswana. A simple morality play and clever who-dun-it with each chapter. The simplicity of the language makes it shine.
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Summary: Like taking a mini vacation!
Review: The title of this book called my attention so much, I bought the book in the spot. What a wonderful surprise it was. I immersed myself in this story. Precious Ramotswe is a charming character that will take you for a trip you won't forget. This is one of those unique books that let you really feel the characters and the culture where they live, just by the way they act and think on their every day life. I went into the internet and researched the country of Botswana, so I could enjoy the book even better. Mc Call Smith has a wonderful way with words. I marked two or three pages during the reading of the story and found myself going back to reread them. Only this kind of writer can make one truly enjoy reading something as simple as a character waking up in the middle of the night to have a glass of water. Wonderfully written to the smallest detail and with so much good humor too! Is a detective story so of course most of the mysteries are resolved in a satisfactory way, and if they aren't be ready for a good laugh. Definitely recommend this book and can't wait to read the next one in the series.
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Summary: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Review: The Number One Ladies? Detective Agency, the number one installment in Alexander McCall Smith?s Precious Ramotswe series (okay, I know that I just said a lot but it is better to be done with all that at once rather than having to subject the reader to an attempt at constructing an urbane and cohesive first several sentences that incorporate all of the aforementioned information), introduces the reader to the lady detective and her number one lady agency at its inception.
McCall Smith?s lucid, fluid prose adds remarkable depth and ease of reading to this already fine story. Ramotswe?s Botswana is a land of tradition dealing with ineveitable arrival of modernization. Unlike some more hardened detectives, however, Ramotswe does not seek to raze one opposite in favor of the other but to preserve the better qualities of each in the midst of a world that continually brings the two into conflict. The seemingly arbitrary progression of the novel can be a bit annoying at times but the individual episodes stand to reinforce each other. This reader gives this first Ramotswe mystery a fine score of seven and two-thirds thumbs up (out of a possible ten).
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Summary: Africa, Africa
Review: History, memory, and place all play central roles in Smith's beautifully crafted detective novel. "We don't forget," protagonist Mma Ramotswe muses. "Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which come back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are." This quote is indicative of the manner in which "Precious" Ramotswe solves the mysteries that she confronts - she reaches deep into her own identity, her country of Botswana, her family, and her experiences to feel her way through various investigations. Ramotswe accepts Africa, with its blemishes, its various problems. Perhaps her intention to open a "Ladies' Detective Agency" has at its root an essential desire to address the roots of these problems from a uniquely African angle. Ramotswe realizes that, in her detective efforts, she is more successful when she relies upon her instincts and her knowledge of her country than upon any Western standards of detection. Similarly, her Detective Agency is a demonstration that Africa's future need not rely upon Western standards; Botswana can travel a parallel path to Western culture, and Africa should not be judged by Western ideals. Ultimately, the parallel between Ramotswe and Africa results in a declaration of the beauty of both; Precious is "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." Trevor's descriptions of Africa are superb and his female detective is bound for great things.
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