Ladies' No.1 Detective Agency

So, since last Saturday, I have devoured a couple of enjoyable books I thought I'd share: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Tears of the Giraffe, the first and second books in a series by Alexander McCall Smith. They chronicle the day-to-day fictional adventures of the only female detective, perhaps in all Africa, Ms. Precious Ramatswe. The books are found in the mystery section of the library here, but they are not violent, thrilling, or even very mysterious. Still, they are worth reading, if only for pure entertainment: Mma Ramotswe is smart, funny, and offers practical opinions about everything from teenagers to Freud. Her mysteries have (thus far) been efficiently wrapped up in neat, satisfying packages, not just once per book, but several times--the good people rewarded and the bad people, well, not punished too severely.

The author is a professor of law in Edinburgh, but spent much of his life in Zimbabwe and Botswana, and has been criticized a little for writing from a black African woman's perspective--

but he obviously loves the people and places he writes about, so who can blame him, when he spins such fun "yarns"? Anyway, these books have been around a while, bestsellers even, but I

thought some of you might enjoy them if you haven't already.