The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

I had never heard of the author or the series, but from Dalrymple's review, and he is one of the few public critics I trust, this sounds as if it is a good series. I will try to check out the book from my public library. Somehow it makes me feel better just knowing that the series exists. Thanks for recommending it. 

I finished The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It's not a terribly long book which is in its favor. I give credit for the author not being long-winded.

Maybe all the black men in Africa are beasts. I don't know. But you won't read too far before tripping over a line like this:



They tend to be irrational, not practical. Ramotswe chimes in with "If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out." But…



I give the author credit for that. Showing two sides. Who have thunk it? But the author is constantly ragging on men. Who knows? Maybe the African men are every bit as much the louses as portrayed in this book. There might be a good reason that Africa has lagged behind the rest of the world.

There is a story or two that weaves the individuals stories together a bit. I don't doubt that you will figure out at least two of her detective cases before you get to the conclusion. They are somewhat obvious. Nevertheless, this is a nice balance to Agatha-Christie style writing where it is all but impossible to know who-done-it because information or crucial characters are withheld.

All in all, this book is something a little different. And you are immersed in the life, scenery, and attitudes of Botswana.

Yep. That's the same book I read.

I'm about finished with my third Jackson/Clementine mystery. But before I picked that up, I started reading another one of the books by Alexander McCall Smith. It was evident that the slow, homespun charm, which made a nice change-of-pace when reading the first book, could not sustain itself with another.

And, really, I do like the characters and setting. But this other book (How to Raise an Elephant, #21 in the series), had a plodding pace. There were nuggets of wisdom, and keen observations, sprinkled here and there. But there just wasn't a lot going on. I'm sure the plot is going to pick up (if I get back to it). I'm just not sure I'll get back to it.

I can see Dalrymple's conundrum. And I suppose he did telegraph the curve upon which he was grading this book. Still, the praise was a bit over the top. I few spare words of soft criticism shouldn't have caused irreparable damage to a friendship. Or just some guiding words as to who this book might be good for.

The best character in that first book (and he's still around by #21) is the car mechanic. He just seems like a real person whereas the way Precious Ramotswe rambles on, she seems more like an idyllic prototype of the wise African black person as written by a white person. Perhaps I'm mistaken. But it does seem to have a big dose of that.

Yes. A little touch of the exotic. And I do like some of the homespun wisdom. What perhaps will allow me to continue on with my second book is that at least Alexander McCall Smith leaves Agatha Christie behind.

There's a time and place for Christie-like plots but they do get tiring. They tend to work only when it is the characters, not the plot, that are central. I've seen Poirot machete his way through some enormously convoluted and cliched plots while still remaining interesting.

Whether too many modern writers are aping Christie or some earlier writers, too few know where to go in terms of original plots. And if someone does have a somewhat unique tone to their novels (such as the Jackson/Clementine mysteries), too often the authors seem to be at a loss for how to tie their stories together (or particiularly how to end them). They seem content to reach into the Christie bag of tricks. Most stories are the worse for it. Let Christie do Christie, but don't try this at home.

And so I did find (at least in that first book) that Smith's plots did not cause any eye-rolling fatigue by relying on a boilerplate cliché factory for the plot, although this current book (How to Raise an Elephant) is working overtime to introduce new cliches. This current book is bogged down by a discussion with her husband about whether or not Ramotswe should lend money to "a cousin of a cousin" for eye surgery. Her husband warns her that once you start accepting the broad "a cousin of a cousin" for who you will help, you'll be drained of all money.

The annoying (to me) subtext of all these naval-gazing discussions by Ramotswe is that it's just so damn compassionate to drop everything and let the leaches suck you dry. At least Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, auto mechanic, is there to provide some balance. But I can't help feeling that I'm being preached to while reading these books.

Because you finished a second book, I'll take a shot at finishing How to Raise an Elephant.

I finished the book and my opinion has been strengthened i.e. the series is basically for young girls. The style is simple, the vocabulary accessible and the stories have to do with morals, ethics and the common problems one encounters in life.

"Tea Time for the Traditionally Built" has a couple of themes running through it. The one theme deals with Mma Ramotswe's attachment to her "tiny white van." It has transported her for over twenty years and she has become very attached to it. When it, once again, gives out, her husband auto mechanic Mr. J.L.B Matekoni decides it is long past retrieving and takes it to the scrap yard. He then buys Mma Ramotswe a "new" (used but in excellent shape) blue van. While she appreciates the sentiment, she still wants her white van back. She begins a search to find and retrieve it. 

The main case discussed is instigated by Mr. Molofololo, a wealthy businessman who owns a local soccer team, which has had great success since he took it over. Unfortunately, the team's performance has dropped precipitously over the last six months and Mr. Molofololo is convinced there is a traitor within the organization causing the losses. He hires Mma Ramotswe to find out who it is. She and her team get to work and find out the reason for the team's decline. Needless to say, it has nothing to do with some insider traitor.

While I do not consider my time reading the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" novels a waste of time, I will now end my relationship with Mma Ramotswe and her close circle of family and friends and move on to other ventures.

Honest to God, I wasn't looking for another detective book set in Botswana. But I found one by accident.

I'm 20% into Death of the Mantis by Michael Stanley (not the same author as the Precious Ramotswe series). This is book #3 in the Detective Kubu series.

"Kubu" is a native word (Setswana) for "hippopotamus," a nickname he picked up in his yute for being a bit plump, which he still is. It's too early to give this one the green light. It's fairly conventional writing which I consider praise, not a criticism. I'd started and stopped about five or six books in my search for something to read until I found this one.

I thought I had something going with The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters. There was something to like about a book whose main character mentions a love for the books of H. Rider Haggard. But the prose was so pretentious and exaggerated, it became quickly unreadable. But at least this book wasn't abjectly boring. I've started and stopped quite a few books of late that just couldn't get on with the story. The authors seemed pleased to just baste in pages of meandering rhetoric.

This one by Michael Stanley so far is at least readable, written by a competent if not particularly flashy author. A game warden is killed. Three bushmen (of the Kalahari type) are under suspicion. One of Stanley's old school chums, a bushman himself (Bushman Khumanego), asks the detective to look into it. The unimaginative inspector in the district that is handling the case seems to be railroading these natives. And we understand that something like this has quite famously happened before and caused an enormous scandal that was known internationally.

Khumanego is written as a grating, self-righteous, overbearing activist for the cause of all Bushmen. He's annoying. But, truth be told, these kinds of characters do exist and I can't fault the author for including him. But did I mention he was (at least in the early going) annoying?

I have known several police officers over the last 74 years. And I have some knowledge of how they work to solve crimes. One of my best friends in Sacramento was a murder police and his process, I believe, was not uncommon. A large percentage of the time the perp is apparent to the police right away. It seldom takes a Colombo to determine the murderer. The biggest challenge is finding evidence sufficient to convict the murderer. Most of the time that is boring work and as the forensic science has developed, it is work the average murder police do not do. 

That is not to take away from a well written who-done-it. But it is harder for a murderer to get away with it today than even 20 years ago. The presence of CCTV on streets, even in small cities limits one of the big three, opportunity, motive and ability being the others. It doesn't mean that murders will stop, just that smart criminals will get better at planning. Better police work always results in better trained criminals. 

I finished Death of the Mantis, another detective series set in Botswana.

I have no compunction against giving up spoilers. This is one of those books that "I read so that you don't have to." One Amazon reviewer was able to sum it up in one paragraph



Obviously the series is inspired to some extent by The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. That's where the similarity ends. But the reviewer is right: The constant descriptions of Kubu's domestic situation were just so much padding. This book could have been slimmed down by 200 pages and lost nothing.

Still, it did chug along okay for the first 45% of it or so. Nothing spectacular. But the plot (in particular, the villain) was badly done. Again, I'm not worried about spoilers because you really shouldn't waste your time on this one. The villain is Bushman Khumanego, the old school chum of Kubu.

The one aspect that it surprising is that Khmanego is so clearly a "Bushmen Lives Matter" sort of zealot. I would have expected this book to be so politically correct that no Bushman would be seen in a bad light. But here the killer (6 murders, at least) is a Bushman.

And this character is so badly written. I haven't read any Hardy Boys books, but the presentation of this villain is about on the level of what you'd expect in a children's book. Probably even below that. It's just horrible writing. The guy began to phone it in at least by the halfway point of the book. But it became big-time amateur-hour at almost exactly 3/5ths into it.

Kubu as a main character is a waste of space. His hard-ass boss is perhaps the only character in the book who seems realistic. What's also interesting is that in a book in which the Bushmen are central, we don't actually learn a lot about their way of life. Nothing about this book even begins to touch on the word "deep."

From reading the reviews, it's possible the earlier two books (this one was #3 in the series) are better. But I'm not going to bother finding out.