"The No. 1 Ladies' Dective Agency"

After watching all of season 1 of the HBO series, I ran out to the library to get this book and found it such an enjoyable, quick read. Almost all of the cases appeared in the series. Sadly, my favorite character, Mma Makutsi, does not appear that much (but oh how she does in book 7 which I am reading now!).

The author, Alexander McCall Smith, does not shy away from Mma Ramotswe's abusive relationship with her ex-husband, and it is that sorrow and violent experience (especially the death of her 5 day old son and the death of her father) that underlies so much of what is going on.

Yet, so much light bursts forth from these pages that one can not help but to smile. The dialogue is crisp and clean, and if you have seen the TV show, you can just see all the characters.

Bravo to Mma Ramotswe and her traditionally built self!

The pages of soul are as follows:
page 48, he father notes that people were like their cattle: wretched, thin people had wretched, thin cattle; dishonest people had dishonest cattle that would cheat other cattle of food.

104: "he is not a good father this man, because he loves his four children too much- he wants to own them. You have to let them go. You have to let them go."

124: I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.

160: ...at night we are all strangers, even to ourselves...

180: She made it sound so simple that he found himself convinced that it would work. That was the wonderful thing about confidence- it was infectious.

196: Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is- a matter of broken bones and crying mothers.

All in all, this is a very good book, worth settling down to with a cup of bush tea.