Delightfully different, THE NO.1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY offers a captivating glimpse of an unusual world. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger. Matekoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she's got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J. If you've got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only - and finest - female private detective. Survivors and otherwise: They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple (1943).Strange Americana: Norwood by Charles Portis (1966).Interplanetary slugs and sexism: The Puppet Masters by Robert A.Some years in the law: Jumping Off the Donkey by John Barnsley (1983).Welcome to Television Land: The Children on the Top Floor by Noel Streatfeild (1964).Ratings under 5 are rare & I struggle with giving those, but in all honesty sometimes feel them appropriate for, again, undeniably arbitrary and very personal reasons.Įach book is rated in its own context, NOT in comparison to the entire range of literature, which would, of course, be an impossible task. A 10 indicates that I can think of no possible improvement. These are merely meant to be a measure of the book's success in meeting my hopes and expectations as a reader.ĥ & higher are what I consider as "keepers", in various degrees. To emphasize: These are very personal, completely arbitrary ratings. Number 1 ladies detective agency books in order professional#I am merely a reader, a consumer of books for amusement and personal instruction, not a professional reviewer - and that is indeed a worthy profession, an important literary craft - so these posts are merely meant to be one person's reading responses, not scholarly reviews.Įarly on in this blog I began rating the books I talked about on a 1 to 10 scale it was meant to be a quick way to communicate my personal degree of satisfaction/pleasure (or the opposite) in each reading experience. Suffice it to say that it was a notable book way back in 1998, and so serves as an ideal Century of Books candidate for its year.Īnd it was fun to re-read this rainy Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday, as I sit in my comfiest chair and nurse a worsening head cold passed along to me by a friend’s winsome but overly affectionate (at least while contagious) youngsters. I don’t think I need to get into plot synopsis and suchlike here this is such a well-known tale that the internet is crowded with all sorts of reviews. Or at least so I am assuming I think I stalled out at number six or seven, vaguely surfeited by the constant good-natured mullings and musings of this small-town wisewoman.ĭon’t get me wrong, I fully intend to catch up to Precious and her companions one day. Seventeen sequels have followed, all of them with long and quirky titles, and all just as charmingly readable as the first. Number 1 ladies detective agency books in order full#This likeable book full of homey snippets of wisdom caught the attention of the reading public – could it have been helped along by its two Booker Judges’ special citations? Its Times Literary Supplement International Book of the Year designation? – and took off like a small but blazing rocket. Our heroine in this low-key character portrait/detective novel is one Precious Ramotswe, thirty-four years old, once married but long deserted by her handsome but brutal jazz musician husband, beloved daughter and sole heir of the late Obed Ramotswe, who sells her father’s prized herd of cattle (with his prior permission) in order to set herself up in business.Īlways an observant sort of person, and provided by nature with a strong moral sense, Mma Ramotswe sets out to solve problems, to right wrongs, and perhaps to lay a few personal ghosts. (Is that an Isak Dinesen ripoff in the first line? I’m thinking so.) No inventory could ever include those, of course. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. And three mugs – one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe – the only lady private detective in Botswana – brewed redbush tea. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith ~ 1998.
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