Rating: 
Summary: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Review: Okay, I have read and enjoyed the first three, listed here plus Tears of the Giraffe and whatever the third was called. My daughter has it right now. A gentle series about a really not understood part of the world. It's also a sort of rally for fat people, or as it is put in the series, traditional size ladies. Botswana sounds like a little piece of heaven in the disaster that is sub-Saharan Africa.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, Enchanting and Satisfying!
Review: Satisfaction Guaranteed for All Parties" reads the sign on The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and so should the cover of the book! Following the adventures of lady detective Ramotswe was a delight. The short adventures, insights to human nature, and the matter-of-fact approach to her work will charm any reader. Smith captures and conveys some of the subtle African nuances of life in this book. You will definitely like this entertaining work whether or not you like mysteries.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Charming.
Review: A wonderfully guiless and charming little book. I fail to see how anyone would not enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant But Tediously Thin
Review: This book received two Booker Judges' Special Recommendations in 1999 and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Milennium by the Times Literary Supplement, which can either be explained by British sentimentality or British condescension, but not by any special literary qualities. If you're looking for the Botswana version of Miss Read, this is your book. This isn't Inspector Morse transposed to Africa but tales of English village life, and the result is, to say the least, disorienting. Furthermore, the "cases" that Mma Ramotswe, No. 1 Ladies' Detective, investigates make the Hardy Boys look like Sam Spade. Mma Ramotswe drinks bush tea, not Twinings, but reading this book is like slowly drowning in a weak brew with far too much milk and sugar.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: An absolutely wonderful start to what is hopefully is a long-running detective series set in modern Botswana. This fast-reading book isn't so much a set piece mystery as it is the story of an African woman in her late thirties who stakes her entire inheritance on the crazy idea of becoming the country's first woman private detective. Precious Ramotswe is a intelligent "traditionally built" woman with a keen sense of human nature and a desire to help people in distress. This book tells of her childhood, her loving miner father, an ill-considered marriage to a trumpeter, her strong belief in her own abilities, and skeptical take on the forces of progress and modernization. This volume contains her first cases, which she adroitly solves with the assistance of her expert typist secretary and the local master mechanic, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.But the book is not just about her, but also aims to portray a positive picture of modern Africa, one all too rarely seen in the West. The cases often intertwine with issues such as development, social structures, power, and gender, but in a disarmingly light and gentle way. Among her tasks are to find a missing husband, investigate a doctor, follow a teenage girl, and find a missing boy who may have been kidnapped by a witch doctor. None of these are particularly convoluted, and Precious's greatest difficulty often lies in determining exactly what to tell her client in order to effect the best result for all concerned and achieve cosmic justice. The stories are delivered in a delightfully fluid and simple prose with pacing that makes the book quite difficult to put down. The series thankfully continues with Tears of the Giraffe and The Kalahari Typing School For Men, with further volumes to follow one hopes.
Rating:
Summary: Utterly charming!
Review: "Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter." So begins Alexander McCall Smith's charming novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Precious Ramotswe grew up in Botswana, an African country that has known relative peace compared to its more unlucky neighbors. When her father dies after a hard life as a miner, Precious inherits a decent sum of money left her by him. Mma Ramotswe invests it all in a rather unusual business-a detective agency proudly named "The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency." Business is brisk for Mma Ramotswe and she gets right down to it with a trusty "detective manual" by her side. In real life, however, it is not simply bookish knowledge that matters. Ramotswe is a special combination of resource, intelligence, and will. She solves her cases with ample common sense and bravery. Smith's novel, set in the Africa of the 90's, is no hard-boiled thriller. Instead most of Ramotswe's cases depict the many foibles of the human character-cheating husbands, insurance scams and even distrustful fathers. The book's language is wonderfully simple and direct. The individual "mysteries" are good stand-alone short stories in their own right. Interspersed amongst them are pictures of a beautiful country, Botswana, and the quiet grace of its people. Mma Ramotswe's everyday interactions with her fellow citizens are captured wonderfully. Ramotswe meets life with smart sensibilities and a wry sense of humor. She is comfortable in her ample frame (a size 22) and proud of her Africa. She "did not want Africa to change. She did not want her people to become like everybody else, soulless, selfish, forgetful of what it means to be an African, or, worse still, ashamed of Africa." In a crazed rushed world, Mma Ramotswe stands for everything right about a less frenetic pace of life. In her, McCall Smith has created a perfect embodiment of Africa. Mr. Smith, who has enjoyed some schooling in Zimbabwe but is a Scot himself, has done a great job both in portraying Botswana and in creating a beautiful portrait of a strong woman. I enjoyed the trip immensely. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is just the right book for a lazy weekend afternoon. I especially recommend it with a side of Mma Ramotswe's favorite drink, a steaming cup of redbush tea!
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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.
Rating:
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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