This is a Vintage Canada edition of the Alexander McCall Smith book which came out last year.
It is as delightful and easy to read as all his books, perhaps particularly those from the The No.l Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Precious Ramotse is the lady detective involved. This time she has her hands full with professional as well as personal problems. Her beloved tiny white van has broken down; her assistant has run into jealousy probems with her fiance; finally, the local football club has run into an unexpected losing streak, and the owner thinks one or more of the players is throwing the game.
The problems themselves are not really what hold our interest. It is the gently hilarious way McCall Smith handles them. He brings to life a gentle African town – so different from the deadly headlines we read every day from that continent. He once lived in Africa, although for the past decades has been attached to the University of Edinburgh from where he writes equally enchanting books about that city.
Read this one. “Wit worthy of Jane Austen”, says the Daily Mail, (London).
Review by Anne McDougall