I always love visiting the characters of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and enjoyed this outing. ( )

In this installment, Mma Ramotswe seems to be nearly at the end of her rope with Mma Makutsi, and with good reason. I know it's not in the nature of these books to have anything really terrible happen, and the characters are meant to be nice people fundamentally, but sometimes I just want to shake some sense into Precious. Why does she let Mma Makutsi practically torpedo her client meetings? She doesn't seem to be too concerned that her business isn't really booming, which is not to say it's all because of Mma Makutsi, but it seems like a point of annoyance that is unnecessary. The red flags about Mma Makutsi's new enterprise go up all over the place and a disaster comes to pass, though of course it all comes right in the end. Which is why I keep reading these novels-- they make me believe in the innate goodness of people, despite their flaws. ( )

Charlie gets fired and Grace opens an restaurant that Violet undermines. ( )

Book number 15 in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.

It had been some time since I read the previous book in this series, and it was a bit disconcerting to come back to Alexander McCall Smith's somewhat odd writing style and realize that I'd almost forgotten what to expect from it and how to sit back and enjoy it. For a brief moment, I was even worried. I hadn't somehow lost my taste for it, had I? But, nope, well before the end of chapter 2, I'd settled right back in as if I'd never left, a feeling rather like slipping into an old, familiar, comfortable pair of shoes.

And what we get here is, indeed, very much like what we've gotten for the first fourteen books. Well, there is a mystery set up that feels especially intriguing this time. There's a woman with amnesia! Who is she, and where has she come from? But that mystery gets largely ignored for much of the novel while we deal with the personal lives of the characters (one of them starts a new business venture while another has to change jobs) and frequently pause for little digressions full of homespun philosophy and lots of warm, low-key humor. In the end, the mystery gets solved almost off-handedly, with the most interesting thing being a little ethical dilemma the solution leads to. But -- and I really don't think this counts as a spoiler for anyone with even the vaguest familiarity with the tone of these books -- everything nevertheless works out nicely in the end for all of these nice people.

I really, really do not understand how this author was able to make a novel like that work once, let alone consistently making it work over and over and over again. But somehow, he pulls it off. I cannot read these and not smile at least a little, and this one was no exception. ( )

Exactly what fans of this series would expect. Beautiful, simple, poignant writing. Alexander McCall Smith crafts compelling characters you cannot help but care about. They live real lives in a real, but to me, exotic place - Botswana.
In this outing, several characters’ lives undergo significant changes with all the stresses and strains this involves. Of course, there is also a job for the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to investigate. Who is this woman who has lost her memory? All, of course, is not what it seems!
Satisfying, heart-warming, life-affirming escapism into an entirely charming world peopled by everyman characters trying to live their lives as well as they can. ( )