Morality for Beautiful Girls is the third in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, but the second and last one I will read. It’s not a horrible book, but neither of the two I’ve read inspired me. In this installment, Mma Ramotswe investigates the sister-in-law of a Government Man to see if she is poisoning the brother. And Mma Makutsi picks the one good girl out of a group of beauty contestants so that the contest won’t be embarrassed by thieving or otherwise bad girls. And she also takes over as Acting Manager of the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors business as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni recovers from depression at an orphanage, at the insistence of Mma Ramotswe her fiance. Mma Makutsi has much success with managing the repair shop as well as with getting the assistants to actually work.
What turns me off more than anything else is the artificially simple in the face of modernity characters. Perhaps people in Botswana are like that. They seem to accept the march of progress, but puzzle at it as if it is all completely foreign. It’s hard to describe, but I find it very off-putting.
Title: Morality for beautiful girls
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Cover artist: Hélène Whitwell
Series: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book 3
Imprint / publisher: Anchor Books / Random House
Format: Paperback
Length: 227 p.
Publication date: November 2002
ISBN-10: 1-4000-3136-2
Subject: Ramotswe, Precious (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Women private investigators — Botswana — Fiction
Subject: Beauty contests — Fiction
Subject: Botswana — Fiction
LC classification: PR6063.C326 M67 2002
