To be honest, I started this book about 3 times and then put it down, until I read the reviews here on Amazon. It was recommended to me by a friend who said I would love it, but I did not know what the heck it was about at first. Then I read the reviews and started it again and I love it. I am about halfway through, and really enjoy "Precious" s character and her honest take on life. It is a lovely, honest book about life in Africa and the detective agency Precious creates. I will defintiely check out the next books in the series!

Again, this book was chosen for one of my bookclubs and this one is ok. It's not the world's greatest nor a thought-provoking read. This book fits the bill of snuggling under the blanket on a cold autumn day and read of the hot desert air in Africa. This is not a typical mystery either. It is a pleasant rambling of life in Africa. It is also a very predictable mystery book (I wouldn't even call it a mystery novel).

This book is the first in the series (which I probably won't read the rest) and it is about a woman named Precious who opened up a business and she is a detective. She looks for straying husbands, lost kids, and other cases. This book is a jumble of several cases where she finds the answer very easily. It is a cute book but again, very predictable.

This is perfect for those cold days when you have time to read a book in its entirety. If you like Agatha Christie novels, you will like this one.

10/22/08

I'm not sure why this book got such raving reviews, I certainly don't need to go on and read book 2 in the series. Perhaps it is because I listened to the audio version, but I found the tone of the writing condescending toward the culture the author is supposed to represent. Moreover, the main character is hardly compelling, and the unfolding events during the story perilously close to being simply boring.

When Precious Ramotswe's father, Obed, dies and leaves her all the cattle with the advice to sell it and buy herself a good business, she decides to become a private detective, the first lady detective in Botswana, and perhaps in the whole of Africa.

Mma Ramotswe, smart, fat and good-natured, equipped with a detective handbook, great memory, and unfailing sense of right and wrong, sets out to help her neighbors and solve the crimes and mysteries happening around. These are not very serious crimes - an impostor, a naughty daughter, a cheating husband, a dishonest employee - but Mma Ramotswe takes her clients seriously, like her role model, Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, and solves the problems using all her abilities, her wisdom, intuition, cleverness, wit and tact.

Mma Ramotswe enjoys her freedom, her house in Zebra Drive in Gaborone and her detective agency in her native country she loves. She is, by all standards, a successful, happy woman. Thanks to his father's cattle she can live in a town, do whatever she wants, drink her favorite redbush tea and have no problems, but she is compassionate and friendly, and really cares for other people. Her detective agency functions also as a psychoanalytical service, although her clients are grossly unaware of this fact. She also loves her country, Botswana, where Kalahari desert dictates the conditions of life, where people live simply, in harmony with nature, believing in the strength of their society and their banks full of diamonds, and wish only to be left in peace. Only her memories, intertwining with the stories of solved crimes, show the dark side of her and her father's life in Botswana, hard work in the mines, dishonest, hurtful people and misery, which she narrowly escaped and which is the fate of many other ordinary people in her country.

Alexander McCall , who lived in Africa for a long time, has managed to pour his love for this sun- dried, rough continent into the pages of his novel, creating one of the most life-affirming and optimistic books I have recently read. "Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency" is written with a lot of humor and easy to read. It is also warm and cheerful, like its main protagonist, the charming Mma Ramotswe. It is a simple book, not aspiring to formal sophistry, but it is good because of the feelings it evokes in the reader - it is not cerebral, but heartfelt. I am very happy this unusual detective story is the first of a long series, because it is a promise of many delights to come.

Main character achieves all her good results from lying, hates dogs, uses one as crocodile bait, has super human intellectual powers and extreme pride in her abilities. Not my type of heroine.