Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7239 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Synopsis
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni becomes involved in the agency's work when he investigates an errant husband. But can a man investigate such matters as competently as one of the ladies? Mma Ramotswe has her doubts. One thing, though, that she does not doubt is the good nature of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who stands for all that is solid and true in a shifting world.

Customer Reviews

Amusing and thought-provoking - despite a degree of predictablity
Slow paced, often predictable, repetitive, based in an imaginary, utopian version of a very small country. Not really crime fiction and certainly not thrillers. So why do I like the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency so much?

I read "The Good Husband of Zebra Drive", having realised, on buying the recently published next book in the series, and issued, that I had missed it out. My main quibble is that the denouement of this episode was itself very predictable, based I am sure on an "urban myth" or something similar - and while elements of the storyline are very predictable, I had not previously found the crux of the ending to be.

Professor McCall Smith writes unashamedly feel-good books, with a slow, measured pace and lightness of touch that makes you feel that Mma Ramotswe is leading you by the hand. The baddies, such as they are, are never really bad, and the conflicts around which the stories are based are ones between basically good people with everyday, minor flaws. I think that the intentional elements of predictability are supposed to reflect the sparsely inhabited place they are set, and the people who live there, who have lived their all their lives and are content to die there too as their ancestors did before them. Those of us who live in the West rather than in this fictional Botswana are perhaps being invited by McCall Smith to consider that our frenetic lifestyles are self-inflicted and by no means a guarantor of greater happiness.

McCall Smith was a professor of medical law and clearly has great interest in philosophy and ethics. The books are readers in practical philosophy, a commentary on the differences between man and woman and young and old, a call to live a calmer life and to treat one's fellow human being a little better. And also, despite the predictable bits, they are amusing, thought-provoking and a cracking good read.

All Hail the Traditionally Built Woman!
In this latest installment of the #1 Ladies Detective Series, we find Mma Ramotswe finding challenges in the most unexpected places: the resignation of Mma Makutsi, holder of the 97 percent degree from Botswana Secretarial College; the desire of husband Mr. J L B Matekoni to take on an investigative case in the belief that life as a detective is more exciting than his work as a mechanic; the case of the late patients of a local hospital overseen by her cousin.

Throughout the book we find ourselves drawn in to the slower pace of the Botswana life, where people stop to watch the birds in the trees and contemplate life. A perfect respite from our own fast-paced world. But the faster pace of life outside Botswana seems to be making inroads in this book. The types of cases being investigated have begun to change, causing Mma Ramotswe to look to her compatriots for their input and finding that if one but takes the time to sit back, think things through, and open their eyes to the things around them answers to life's questions can be found.

Easy to read, this work packs a lot of information and entertainment in its short span of 210 pages. But really, how long does a work need to be if the message can be delivered succinctly?

Once again, McCall Smith has given me a good solid read and I look forward to the next chapter in this series.


Also recommended: The first 7 books in this series.

A Welcome Return for the Most Gentle of Detectives
If you're looking for hardboiled thrills then don't read these books. For me, the detecting is always an added bonus rather than the reason for reading them. McCall Smith has developed a wonderful cast of characters within these books and it is a struggle to wait patiently for him to update us on what is happening next in their lives. Will Mma Makutsi get married this time around? Will the feckless Charlie ever sort himself out? These are the kinds of things I want to know. In this book, Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe have a misunderstanding, Mr. JLB Matekoni decides to take on a little detecting work of his own and Charlie opens his own taxi firm. As always there are lashings of redbush tea, cake at the Orphan farm, and lashings of sensible advice, lovingly administered by the most kindly and therapeutic lady detective of them all, Mma Ramotswe. Let's hope that her little white van lasts long enough to drive her into the pages of another book very soon.