The no1 ladies detective agency series series#

She can appear pushy and overbearing, but Grace has a heart of gold, and she takes a greater and greater role in the business – and the storylines – as the series progresses. It is a fact that she never lets anyone forget. Grace is a proud and able woman whose greatest achievement is that she scored an unprecedented 97 per cent in her exams at the Botswana Secretarial College. Grace works alongside Precious at the No1 Ladies Detective Agency, where she endeavours to keep her boss on the straight and narrow. Precious is at the heart of the books, but she is ably assisted by an engaging array of supporting characters – foremost of whom are the wonderful Mma Grace Makutsi and Mr JLB Maketoni. And it is a familiarity that will only deepen, the further into the series you go. By the end of the first book, you will almost certainly have developed an affinity with Botswana, its people and customs. McCall Smith has a real talent for descriptive prose, and it is due to his skills that we readers can feel the heat and dust, visualise the countryside and scenery and can even conjure up the scents of a country that is probably unknown to most of us.

It has given her a finely tuned sense of justice – but that justice is always dispensed on her terms, and her solutions are often a little, shall we say, unusual. Precious is a woman whose history and upbringing have shaped the way she views the world around her. The stories also look at crime and punishment from a markedly different angle. That can seem alien to people like me, living in a fast-moving, technology laden world that can sometimes seem devoid of manners or morals. This is post-colonial Africa, but an old-style politeness lives on.

The series is set in the here and now, but because of the exotic Botswana backdrop it almost feels as if you’re going back in time. Try to pick up earlier editions if you can – as well as great reading, they are a feast for the eyes.īut I digress. There have been 14 so far, with gorgeous covers – at least until number 12 in the series, when the publishers, in their wisdom, decided to lose the fabulous, colourful vinyl block print and collage designs of Hannah Firmin for something much less eye-catching. Oh, and they’re written by a Rhodesian-born Scotsman, Alexander McCall Smith. Sales of the first 13 books have topped 20 million copies in English, and the books appear in 45 languages around the world.įor the uninitiated, The No1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is the first in a series of books, all set in Botswana and featuring the aforementioned Precious Ramotswe.

The series has just celebrated its 15th anniversary and Precious appears in 14 novels, including one for children. I’ve always been a fan of high-action, bloody and remorseless crime novels, and this book was none of those things, but I loved it all the same.Īnd I’m certainly not the only one. A friend let me borrow her copy of The No1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and I was immediately hooked. I was on holiday and, as usual in those pre-Kindle days, there was plenty of time to go before I returned home and I had run out of things to read. I first met this lovely lady of traditional build in the late 1990s. As I sit here sipping my red bush tea (artistic licence… it’s PG Tips!), I’ve been reflecting on how long I’ve been acquainted with Mma Precious Ramotswe, and why she deserves her place in the list of classic crime novels.

The no1 ladies detective agency series