Product Description

THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY.
FOR ALL CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS AND ENQUIRIES. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED FOR ALL PARTIES.
UNDER PERSONAL MANAGEMENT.

A beguiling mystery and lyrical novel of Africa -- the fourth in a series that the L.A. Times calls “thoroughly engaging and entertaining.”

Now that The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (the only detective agency for ladies and others in Botswana) is established, its founder, Precious Ramotswe, can look upon her life with pride: she’s reached her late thirties (“the finest age to be”), has a house, two children, a good fiancé -- Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni -- and many satisfied customers. But life is never without its problems. It turns out that her adopted son is responsible for the dead hoopoe bird in the garden; her assistant, Mma Makutsi, wants a husband and needs help with her idea to open the Kalahari Typing School for Men; yet Mma Ramotswe’s sexist rival has no trouble opening his Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency across town. Will Precious Ramotswe’s delightfully cunning and profoundly moral methods save the day? Follow the continuing story of Botswana’s first lady detective in the irresistible The Kalahari Typing School for Men.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1608851 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Publishers Weekly
The fourth appearance of Precious Ramotswe, protagonist of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and two sequels, is once again a charming account of the everyday challenges facing a female private detective in Botswana. In his usual unassuming style, McCall Smith takes up Ramotswe's story soon after the events described in Tears of the Giraffe. Precious and her fiance, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, still have not set a wedding date, but they continue to nurture the sibling orphans in their care, as well as the entrepreneurial ambitions of Precious's assistant, Mma Makutsi, who sets out to open a typing school for men. Along the way, Ramotswe handles a few cases and negotiates the arrival of a rival detective in Gaborone. The competition, a sexist detective who boasts of New York City street smarts, proves a delicious foil to his distaff counterpart. A moral component enters the story in the person of a successful engineer who wishes to atone for his past sins. He enlists Ramotswe to help him find the woman he has wronged, and this case comes to a satisfying yet hardly sentimental conclusion. But the real appeal of this slender novel is Ramotswe's solid common sense, a proficient blend of folk wisdom, experience and simple intelligence. She is a bit of a throwback to the days of courtesy and manners, and casts disapproving glances at the apprentices in her fiance's auto shop who obsess about girls instead of garage protocol. A dose of easy humor laces the pages, as McCall Smith throws in wry observations, effortlessly commenting on the vagaries his protagonist encounters as she negotiates Botswana bureaucracy. This is another graceful entry in a pleasingly modest and wise series.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
are really booming, so grab this next tale about the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
All of the main characters in this delightful series about Mma Ramotswe's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana return in this third installment. The newcomers whose problems Mma Ramtoswe solves are as interesting as the regulars, and the evocative descriptions of rural and urban Botswana are redolent with the scents and sights of Africa. As in the earlier books, listeners are transported to this hot, arid corner of sanity and civility in southern Africa. Lisette Lecat, a native South African, offers a near perfect narration. Having worked briefly in Botswana, this reviewer can attest to the rightness of the characters' inflections, pace, and patterns of speech. Lecat handles male voices exceptionally well, and her version of Mma Ramotswe is the definitive voice of that remarkable woman. R.E.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine