Rating: 
Summary: Reasoning with Ramotswe
Review: Precious Ramotswe inherits her father's cattle herd and sells it to start a new life. The options are limited for a woman in Botswana. She sets out on an uncharted course, opening the first private detective agency run by a woman. At least in Botswana. Mma Ramotswe is a commanding figure. She's stout, observant and reasons with precise logic. She would have made a great politician. Instead, she buys a house, an office, hires a secretary, installs a telephone - and sits down to wait for clients. It seems she's likely to shut it all down within a week.Instead, clients come calling. The result is a series of vignettes of her clients' problems and their resolutions. There are wandering husbands, rebellious teen-age children [are there any other kind?] and a missing, probably murdered child. Justice, although never mentioned by either McCall Smith or Mma Ramotswe, is an important element throughout these episodes. Justice and the value of being an African. McCall is knowledgeable about Southern Africa and its people. He imparts that understanding with marvelous skill. His Scottish background never intrudes or distracts. Except perhaps in one of Mma's more bizarre cases. The Scots treasure their reputation for producing fine doctors. One of Mma Ramotswe's mysteries is the occasionally inept doctor. It is clearly the highlight of this superb book. Mma Ramotswe, in establishing her unique agency, might be thought to have shed her personal life. After all, she had a brief, unhappy marriage. Men are to be watched, controlled, and manipulated in ways to prevent their wandering. Yet, as might be expected, there is a man in her town whose value transcends the image dominated by wandering husbands or lovers. He knows her worth and she his, but his stumbling proposal is rebuffed. There's no strain on the friendship, however, and it becomes clear the two will be useful to each other in the future. McCall Smith has accomplished something very special with this book. It cries out for a sequel [of which there are now four] for many reasons. It certainly shatters the long-standing image of the "detective" novel with its stacks of corpses, inept policemen and implausible characters. Mma Ramotswe is simply a capable woman without special powers. She focusses on the problem at hand, keeps distractions at bay and refuses to deal in absolutes. McCall Smith's powers of characterisation, locale and story place him far above the traditional examples of the "mystery" genre. He is compelling reading for anyone. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating: 
Summary: so boring
Review: I bought this book after reading all those fabulous reviews ,it was so boring that no matter how hard I forced myself I couldn't go on reading after the 40th page .You could feel that the writer was a novice from the start
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Summary: Fantastic Book Showing a lot About Botswanan Society
Review: I'm an American woman who has spent 12 years living in Africa, and traveled to almost every part of the African continent. When I bought this book, somehow, from the name, I was expecting it to be about some Chinese people living in London! Nevertheless, it was a delightful surprise when I found it was about a lady detective in Botswana. I found it interesting that the author is a Professor of Medical law, living in Scotland, but having been born and raised in Zimbabwe. He has published many varied books on many subjects. I think these are his "fun" books! I also think that part of the reason he has written these books is to show non-Africans what traditional African society is like, especially how it is managing to move into the modern age. By setting it in Botswana, he neatly sidesteps many of the problems found in other parts of Africa, and is able to concentrate both on his story, and on showing us how traditional Africans THINK and act. I found this especially interesting, having lived in several African cultures, myself. I also find the series very uplifting and rewarding to read, in addition to being a good story. I think some of the critical reviews are from people who have never lived or traveled in Africa, and they just don't realize how true-to-life are so many of the episodes-I do not find these books at ALL condescending toward blacks. On the contrary, they are a celebration of the traditional GOOD values found in black African culture (a nice change from what we usually see in the news). There were several things I especially enjoyed about this book. I don't particularly enjoy first-person, male-oriented police detective novels. This is about a woman detective, who had no more qualifications than you or I, but who just hung out a sign, and used her common sense. She ordered a text book from London, from which she learned some investigative procedures. She's very clever. The book is not written as a first person, blow-by-blow account. On the contrary, it is written in third person, and is more about her LIFE, going through her becoming a detective, the cases she meets along the way (which we watch her solve), and what we learn about the society as we go along. I would highly recommend this book to anyone planning to travel to any southern African country. It is a light, humorous book, from which you can learn a lot while enjoying a great story. I found it difficult to put down. I have now read the first two books in the series, and plan to order every single one. I can hardly wait until they arrive in the mail!
Rating: 
Summary: Not All It Was Cracked Up To Be...
Review: This novel came highly recommended to me by a friend whose book judgement I trust, but I was halfway into it when I realized, "My god. This is African Encyclopedia Brown!" I like the way the author describes Africa, and it did have a sense of place, but it seemed like such a gossamer thin plotline throughout. Silly even. I always knew what would happen next. Liking a book is a very personal experience, but for me, "Poisonwood Bible," was a more substantive, enjoyable and dimensionalized view of Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: Charming but, ultimately, sad
Review: Reading the blurb with biographical details about author Alexander McCall Smith, it is obvious that he is an extraordinary man. Still, it is a feat that an upper educated Englishman can so clearly inhabit the persona of a poorly educated black woman in Botswana. Readers who are unfamiliar with that country will come away with a much more thorough understanding of place after reading THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY. Smith's heroine is a middle-aged black woman who cleverly solves the mysteries that visit her town. She uses common sense and shrewd observation to put two and two together and come up with four when others are not even counting. As such, the individual vignettes are deeply satisfying. There is a poignancy to Smith's descriptions, however, of how difficult life is in that corner of Africa, of how its people are so accustomed to their hard lives, and how they take pleasure in such small things. Other issues, more terrible issues, are alluded to in the book. Yet some of these secrets are not completely explored, secrets about slavery and voodoo and human sacrifice. Certainly, discourse on these problems would have ruined the pacing of the separate stories, but it was troubling to see them hinted at nonetheless. Alexander McCall Smith is an author of immense talent.
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Summary: Buy 10 copies each and get Mma Ramotswe to No.1
Review: Some books get to the No.1 slot on Amazon - this is one that OUGHT to get there - if enough of you buy 10 copies each to give to all your friends and family this Christmas, it is in with a chance - No.91 on the list is simply far too low. Mma Ramotswe and the other many equally delightful people of Botswana that McCall Smith has created in this simply idyllic series (even Laura Bush loves the series I gather), is the perfect enjoyable, innocent, heroic, gentle and always hilariously funny reading that everyone needs in these deeply troubled times. This is THE perfect Christmas present for just about everyone in the family - my wife and I are ladelling out copies like sweets this year - and each one will give a lifetime of fun. Not only that but success and fame could not have happened to a nicer person than McCall Smith himself - he is simply one of the nicest, kindest and most consistently hysterically funny authors you will ever meet, and booksellers world wide are now eagerly awaiting his next novels in the Botswana series, to pack out their stores and to have an author evening like no other. This is magical stuff, folks - make us all happy, buy 10 copies each to introduce them to friends and family, buy 10 boxes of the boxed set each for those who will enjoy all of them and get this most deserving of authors to Amazon No.1 by Christmas. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003) and THE BALKANS IN WORLD WAR TWO (Palgrave, 2003)
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Summary: Number One Heroine; Fascinating Setting
Review: 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
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Summary: Not just a great detective book--a great book, period!
Review: I came to this book after having had many, many people recommend it to me. When I get that kind of Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers thumbs-up, I tend to get stubborn, suspecting a mass-marketing push of some sort. The more fool me. In this case, the price for my stubbornness definitely came off my own hide.
Fortunately, my niece's plane was late to land a couple of weeks ago, so I picked this up at the airport bookstore and started to read it. I was immediately hooked.
As you can read above, this amazing volume follows the exploits of Mma Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's first female detective. We watch her set up her office, solve her first few cases, and eventually unlock a mystery that peers into the dark (and banal) heart of human evil. But to call this a detective novel is almost a disservice to Mr. Smith's wonderful book. Mysteries, in general, fall into a very few, well-established sub-genres: the Cozy, the Hardboiled Detective, the Police Procedural, the Thriller. Every one of these types has a very clear set of standard gimmicks--tropes--that let you know what's going on. Even books that mix genres (like Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden novels which mix fantasy with hardboiled, or Laura Joh Rowland's Sano Ichiro series and Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta books, both of which tend to shift from procedural to thriller) tend to show great respect for the genre. But this book seems to ignore the traditional forms of the detective novel altogether. It is, first and formost, a novel, a work of literary fiction. Its main subject is the soul of the people of Botswana, as viewed through the lens of Mma Ramotswe herself. Yes, she solves mysteries. But it is more in the fashion of Solomon or Judge Ooka than Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade. She is a master of the human soul. She understands people, and why they do the silly things they do, and so she inevitably manages to uncover the answers to questions that others can't seem to solve.
Part of the beauty of the book is that Smith's deceptively simple storytelling style all but forces the reader to fall in love with Precious. She is so admirable, so endearing that you have no choice. You know she's going to solve the case, and that, as long as she is working on the problem, everything's going to be all right. By way of example--and I'm not going to give away too much here--about half way through the book, an incident occurs that is, on many levels, quite horrific. Smith handles the scene beautifully, simply and terrifyingly. It is the sort of scene that has broken my suspension of disbelief in several previous thrillers. Yet, because of Smith's style and Mma Ramotswe's charm and perseverance, I felt enough trust to continue on. That trust was rewarded. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency solved the case in most satisfactory fashion.
For me, knowing of southern Africa mostly through novels and horrific news reports, it was a joy to get to know Botswana on so personal and believable a level.
Rating:
Summary: just ok
Review: This book was just okay. Very slow moving, not riveting or fast-paced at all. Good for a slow day on the porch. It will not keep you up at night page-turning that's for sure. The main storyline was predictable. The good thing was that it was short.
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Summary: What a great introduction to Mma Ramotswe and Botswana
Review: The first book of the series started slowly because I expected a conventional mystery (Mma Ramotswe is a detective, after all). Instead, these are gentle plots that reveal characters and the modern story of Africa. The writing and, for me, unfamiliar rubrics of daily conversation in Botswana soon completely captivated me. These three novels hang together nicely and they do not seem in any sense repetitive. Characters develop and change as the series moves along. The only thing many readers say as they close the cover of the last of the three books (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe, and Morality for Beautiful Girls) in this set is, "More! More!" The set will be a great Christmas present for a number of the readers on my list.
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