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2006-01-07 18:46
From: AD
a review of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Today Show Book Club #8)
 
Spoiler warning: key plot disclosed
First of all, he never explained why it's the ladies' agency, rather than the lady's agency, since there is only one lady detective!
This book is about a lady, Precious Ramotswe, who grew up in a village in Botswana. Raised by her father and his cousin, she became observant and smart with high self-esteem and a talent for drawing. As a young woman she kept books for her cousin's husband's business until she married an attractive but abusive young trumpet player. She left him before their first child was born and returned to her father, but the baby died. Eventually her father died of the lung ailment he picked up in a South African diamond mine, and Mma Ramotswe sold her father's cattle to open her detective agency. She set things up properly and slowly her business grew, with interesting cases.
This seems to be a really popular book. It is a decent read, in my opinion, but not something to go wild about. I'd probably read the second one if the opportunity presented itself, but I doubt I'd ever look for it in the library.
The style is kind of strange. It has a lot of flashbacks, some of them hard to identify as flashbacks, and it's hard to say it goes in chronological order, but I guess you sort of have a feel for Mma Ramotswe's life story and the beginnings of her detective agency by the end of the book. It seems like the author wrote almost oversimplistically, but he doesn't hesitate to throw in a more complicated one if it's the best one.
This review is helpful to 1 person.
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By Alexander McCall Smith
Anchor
ISBN: 1400034779
Release Date: 2003-02-06
Paperback
List Price: USD 12.95
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