The Charmer From Botswana (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall)

Member Name: basil40

Product:	The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall
Date:	27/01/05 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Original, Lovely dialogue

Disadvantages: Simple cases

WHAT'S THIS THEN?
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It's the first in a series of books by Alexander McCall Smith about Precious Ramotswe, the only female private detective in Botswana. She is, by Smith's admission, overweight, overbearing and underloved but in Africa and especially Botswana this is a look considered sexy and desirable by men.

PLOT
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Precious Ramotswe's father left her an inheritance and, being a liberal man, said that if she didn't want to go and buy cattle (the only financial sure thing in Botswana) and instead buy a shop or a business then he would still be proud of her.

The first quarter of the book lays the foundations of Precious' upbringing. A whole chapter is dedicated to her father's working history in the gold mines of South Africa; another focuses on Precious' teenage years and a third concentrates on her doomed, violent marriage to a jazz trumpeter to whom she later became pregnant by. The baby died a few hours after birth.

It is this torrid past that serves Ramotswe well in her detective work. She applies a steely, yet good humoured, attitude to her work. I thought that Smith might well go down the "all men are bastards" route after her failed marriage, but it's refreshing to note that some of Precious' closest acquaintances are male.

After solving a couple of easy peasy cases, the story centres upon the abduction of an 8 year old boy just outside his village on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. It's a sign of the times that I immediately thought "paedophilia", but this is Botswana. It transpires that abductions are extremely rare and it's the child's bones - for witchcraft purposes - that the perpetrators seek.

Meanwhile Precious takes on small cases and builds herself a reputation to the extent where Botswana's richest man and, then later, it's most powerful man seek her services. One of them wants a bag returned that was stolen from his car. The bag had a child's bone in it......

THE CASES
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I thought that the cases were going to be dull and uninspiring when the first one was a lady seeking Ramotswe's help to see if her husband was cheating on her or not. Even this mundane procedure had a satisfactory, humourous and creative outcome.

Other cases such as: bogus insurance claims, inconsistent doctors and schoolgirls involved in forbidden afterschool trysts are dealt with as any logical person would: sensibly, tactfully and methodically. The outcomes are by turns surprising and satisfying.

GOOD POINTS
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Firstly, the setting. Precious Ramotswe opens the door to her office, sits on her porch with a cup of bush tea and surveys a beautiful African sunset with silhouettes of wild game and paw-paw trees on the horizon. Great stuff.

The dialogue is fantastic. Respectful and courteous throughout, Precious deals with liars, sinners and saints equally until pushed to her limit when having to silence a stroppy lawyer in one case.

Traditional titles are used. "Mma" for women and "Rra" for men. This adds to the sheer authenticity of the book and the setting.

BAD POINTS
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The book does drag slightly at the beginning when outlining the Ramotswe family's history, particularly that of her father's mining years.

The cases, whilst varied and imaginatively solved, would be quite easy to solve, suggesting that the people of Botswana are either dim or lazy! Perhaps this is my perception and I've got it wrong.

OVERALL
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This is the first in a series and I suppose the slow start is needed to lay the foundations of the ensuing books. It's a fairly engrossing read and Mma Ramotswe's single-minded approach to solving cases is refeshing. The characters and the setting are colourful and vivid as is the dialogue. Great stuff, but I fear for the standard of the follow-up stories.

Summary: