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Written by Sarah Boslaugh Tuesday, 16 June 2009 14:58

McCall Smith explores the web of human relations with particular focus on the question of what is truth, and whether honesty is always the best policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the ninth volume of his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith uses several stories to explore the web of human relations with particular focus on the question of what is truth, and whether honesty is always the best policy.

One involves a series of threatening letters delivered to detective Precious Ramotswe, which causes her to suspect a trusted associate. Another involves a woman who comes to the agency hoping to learn about her past and locate some of her relatives. Then there is the story of Motholeli, foster child of Mma Ramotswe and her husband Mr. J.L. B. Matekoni: Can a doctor in Johannesburg really cure her paralysis, or is he raising false hopes so he can collect a consulting fee? Finally, there is the story of Mma Makutsi, her fiancé Mr. Phuti Radiphuti and their marriage bed.

The particular stories are almost beside the point, however; the novels are like pieces cut from one long bolt of cloth which represents the fictional Botswana created by Mr. McCall Smith. The characters are like old friends by now; you can be sure Mma Maketoni will continue to go on about her 97 percent exam results, Mma Ramotswe will continue to promote red bush tea as good for what ails you (grocery stores in London now carry it, thanks to the popularity of these novels), and Mma Potokwani will continue to send fruitcakes to Rra Maketoni, who will continue to repair the orphanage's mechanical equipment for free.

Some critics have dubbed Precious Ramotswe the Miss Marple of Botswana, but it's more accurate to instead call Mr. McCall Smith the Agatha Christie of that country, not in terms of the complexities of his plots (there aren't any), but because he has created a popular detective series set in a cozy and orderly universe not entirely unlike the England in which Miss Christie set many of her novels. His Botswana is a land where old-fashioned virtues such as loyalty, hard work, respect and community are the prevailing values, and in which threats to the social order can be efficiently identified and disposed of. At the end of every novel you can be sure that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, making Mr. McCall Smith's Botswana a very comforting place to spend a few hours. As Mma Ramotswe says to a security guard, there are no bank robbers in Botswana because if someone tried to rob a bank, "you'd probably know exactly who they were. You could simply threaten to tell their mothers." | Sarah Boslaugh

Further information about the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is available from the author's website and the Random House website . 

240 pages. New York: Anchor, 2009. $13.95 (paperback)