The Kalahari Typing School for Men

March 24, 2003
The fourth appearance of Precious Ramotswe, protagonist of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
and two sequels, is once again a charming account of the everyday challenges facing a female private detective in Botswana. In his usual unassuming style, McCall Smith takes up Ramotswe's story soon after the events described in Tears of the Giraffe. Precious and her fiancé, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, still have not set a wedding date, but they continue to nurture the sibling orphans in their care, as well as the entrepreneurial ambitions of Precious's assistant, Mma Makutsi, who sets out to open a typing school for men. Along the way, Ramotswe handles a few cases and negotiates the arrival of a rival detective in Gaborone. The competition, a sexist detective who boasts of New York City street smarts, proves a delicious foil to his distaff counterpart. A moral component enters the story in the person of a successful engineer who wishes to atone for his past sins. He enlists Ramotswe to help him find the woman he has wronged, and this case comes to a satisfying yet hardly sentimental conclusion. But the real appeal of this slender novel is Ramotswe's solid common sense, a proficient blend of folk wisdom, experience and simple intelligence. She is a bit of a throwback to the days of courtesy and manners, and casts disapproving glances at the apprentices in her fiancé's auto shop who obsess about girls instead of garage protocol. A dose of easy humor laces the pages, as McCall Smith throws in wry observations, effortlessly commenting on the vagaries his protagonist encounters as she negotiates Botswana bureaucracy. This is another graceful entry in a pleasingly modest and wise series.

All of the main characters in this delightful series about Mma Ramotswe's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana return in this third installment. The newcomers whose problems Mma Ramtoswe solves are as interesting as the regulars, and the evocative descriptions of rural and urban Botswana are redolent with the scents and sights of Africa. As in the earlier books, listeners are transported to this hot, arid corner of sanity and civility in southern Africa. Lisette Lecat, a native South African, offers a near perfect narration. Having worked briefly in Botswana, this reviewer can attest to the rightness of the characters' inflections, pace, and patterns of speech. Lecat handles male voices exceptionally well, and her version of Mma Ramotswe is the definitive voice of that remarkable woman. R.E.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

October 1, 2003
Mr. Buthelezi threatens Mma "Precious" Ramotswe's status as the only detective in Botswana when he opens the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency in this fourth title of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series. Her wisdom and common sense help solve both the cases of one of Mr. Buthelezi's dissatisfied customers and one involving her assistant, Mma Grace Makutsi, whose ingenuity drives the opening of the Kalahari Typing School for Men. Lisette Lecat's clearly understood accent adds ambience to this sure-to-be-popular recording. Highly recommended.-Sandy Glover, West Linn P.L., OR

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