The sixth in the ‘No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ series of novels is as delightful as any of its predecessors. Mma Ramotswe and her able assistant, Mma Makutsi (‘the most distinguished graduate of her year from the Botswana Secretarial College’ with a 97 per cent pass mark), continue to dispense true justice in a corrupt world while experiencing to the full the moral and emotional stresses of life. Cheerful ladies though they may be — and their virtues and foibles certainly cheer the reader — their triumphs over adversity do not come without a cost.
Their vulnerability, as well as their humanity, is what makes them so attractive. In this book both ladies are insulted by men: Precious Ramotswe by her appalling ex-husband, the bad-ass musician returned from Johannesburg, Note Mokoti, who has the effrontery to address the ‘traditionally-built’ Precious as ‘fat lady’, as well as to blackmail her; and Grace Makutsi by the conceited apprentice mechanic, Charlie, who calls her a ‘warthog with big round glasses’. In the long run, of course, neither male will be allowed to get away with taking such liberties. But both ladies respond to their respective insults in such a way as to increase one’s admiration of them — and of their creator.
For gender politics are at the heart of the ‘No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ series, as the title alone indicates. Despite her happy marriage to that good man and mechanic Mr J. L. B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, McCall Smith’s protagonist is under no illusions about the male of the species and answers Mma Makutsi’s question about what men think about thus:
‘Men think about ladies a great deal of the time,’ she said. ‘They think about ladies in a disrespectful way.
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