The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series doesn’t really impress me based on this book. The book is a series of short cases solved by the first lady detective in Botswana, Mma Ramotswe. She’s a simple woman, and she thinks simply. When the author lets us into Ramotswe’s head, it’s like you would imagine an uneducated tribesman would sound. And yet she deals with complex and modern things every day. The thought process is naive, I guess. But she shows little naivete. To me, this dichotomy distracts from some otherwise interesting mysteries. Some of them are whodunits. Some are intrigues where Ramotswe cons bad guys back. And some are just Ramotswe proving a point. Fairly inventive, but nothing earth-shattering.
And that can pretty much be said about the whole book. Inventive, but not earth-shattering.
Title: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Series: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book 1
Imprint / publisher: Anchor Books / Random House
Format: Paperback
Length: 235 p.
Publication date: August 2002 (original pub. 1998)
ISBN-10: 1-4000-3477-9
Subject: Women private investigators — Botswana — Fiction
Subject: Botswana — Fiction
LC classification: PR6063.C326 N6 2002
