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A delightful novel brimming with murderless mysteries. When the reader is introduced to Mma Ramotswe, she is setting up her detective agency, the only one in Botswana, and solving her first case. Suddenly the author begins to tell the story of a man who at 18 is sent into the mines in South Africa. By the time the man's story is told, you learn how young men are trained and sent to work in the mines, the tips and tricks they learn to avoid the many dangers they face, and that this man in particular, unlike others, has been sending the money he earned home for 15 years for the purchase of cattle - the means by which he hopes to be able to leave the mines. Unexpectedly he is a witness to murder and leaves the mines before he had planned to. This story turns out to be that of Mma Ramotswe's father. Before the reader is brought back to the detective agency where Mma Ramotswe is busy painting, putting up curtains and hiring a secretary, the story of Mma Ramotswe's life unfolds. Her given name is "Precious". When quite young, her mother dies and her father arranges for a cousin to come live with them and be a companion, teacher, and surrogate mother to Precious. This cousin teaches her valuable lessons by having her memorize figures, the alphabet, and to do math problems in her head. Ultimately, the cousin marries and moves away. When Precious is finished with school, her father sends her to live with the cousin so that she can have a social life. She also gets valuable work experience by working for her cousin's husband. While traveling back and forth between the homes of her cousin and father, Precious meets a guitar player. After several planned encounters, the guitar player proposes to Precious and promptly rapes her before she can even say she will marry him. He finally asks Precious's father for permission to marry her and by the time they do marry she is pregnant. The description of their short life together is rather tragic. Her husband prefers his music friends and coffee houses, while Precious is bored with such a limited life and prefers reading, etc. After a terrific beating by her husband which sends her to hospital for stitches, he walks out on her when she tells him that at least the baby is okay. He was appalled that she was pregnant. Leaving Precious with basically nothing, her only recourse was to return to her father. The reader learns that she ultimately has her baby but tragically it is born prematurely and dies after 5 days. Precious settles down to look after her father who dies seventeen years later, leaving her all of his cattle and farm to sell in order to open a business - he hopes a butcher shop or something of that nature. It is this tapestry of early loss followed by security, adventure followed by terror, joy tinged with sadness, and finally contentment that makes Mma Ramotswe feel she would be a great private detective. A fan of Agatha Christie, Mma Ramotswe feels that she can bring solutions to real-life myseries as Christie did to fictional ones. She orders books on being a detective, studies them carefully, and waits for her first customer. When she is given a case, you wonder how she will ever solve it, however, her solutions are always very quick and ultimately so simple that you are left wondering "Why didn't I think of that?". The author's descriptions are so vivid that it isn't long before you feel like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and aren't in Kansas anymore. You learn of the many varieties of birds, flowers and animals and which are indigenous to which country. Some passages are so eloquent that you feel you could almost hear the birds, or even choke on the clouds of dust while watching the brilliant sun fade into the horizon. It is most interesting to learn the differences between the countries and tribes, and how the tribes perceive each other. The phrasing was nice, quite different and refreshing. The author uses a richer vocabulary than found in many novels, as well as British terms which should pose no problem for most regular readers of British mysteries. Although the author is a man, he writes convincing dialogue for women. However, he does seem to make women a bit stereotypical. All women seem strong, look down on men and assume all men are either sex-crazed, lazy, or crooked. There were too many women coming for help but not really caring if they actually get results. Almost all assumed right off that their husbands were cheating. I liked the rapport between Mma Ramotswe and her secretary in the beginning of the novel and was sorry that there was only a passing mention of the secretary toward the end. I hope that in future novels the author will build on their relationship. The author had a habit of finishing an episode and then later in the next episode he would come out with comments that perhaps would have been better included in the previous one, e.g., the amount paid by the previous client for work. Since it wasn't given as an aside and appeared thrown in as an afterthought, I felt it stopped the action. There were a few things left unanswered with just a hint that they might be covered in a subsequent novel. All in all I loved the book and feel that, given the unfamiliar African names, its best medium is as a recorded book. The narrator does a splendid job of pronunciation and the differentiation between characters, though sometimes she has more characters sound East Indian than actually should be. It is fortunate that she is originally from South Africa so that the names of the animals, tribes, and people roll effortlessly off her tongue. I can't wait for the next novel in the series - to hear the birds, feel the heat, the dust, and intrigue of Africa. Note: This audio book can be purchased or rented from http://www.recordedbooks.com
Reviewed by Ginger K. W. Stratton, June 2003
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