Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Starred review from March 9, 2009
Once again, Precious Ramotswe uses her insights into human nature to unravel problems big and small in Smith's charming 10th novel to feature Botswana's No. 1 lady detective (after The Miracle at Speedy Motors
). Leungo Molofololo, the owner of the Kalahari Swoopers, a local soccer team with a lot of athletic talent, suspects a traitor on the squad is deliberately sabotaging games for an unknown reason. Despite her complete ignorance of the sport, Mma Ramotswe agrees to look into the matter. She and her prickly assistant, Grace Makutsi, attend a match and begin interviewing the players in an effort to solve what amounts to the book's main mystery. The soccer inquiry, though, is secondary to a major event in Mma Ramotswe's life—the impending demise of the little white van she's used for many years that's much more than a machine to her. Fans can look forward to the debut of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
on HBO on March 29.

April 1, 2009
Mma Precious Ramotswe wrestles with a timeless problem—to cling to the old or embrace the new—in her tenth adventure.

Mr. Leungo Molofololo, the latest client of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, has a big problem. The soccer team he owns, the Kalahari Swoopers, has stopped winning. Someone on the team, he tells Mma Ramotswe, is throwing the matches, and he wants her to find out who. Despite her complete ignorance of the game and her client's failure to pay a retainer, Botswana's preeminent detective conscientiously begins interviewing Swoopers to find out who is the rotten link. As usual in this much-honored series (The Miracle at Speedy Motors, 2008, etc.), however, the real action lies elsewhere. Sharp-tongued assistant detective Grace Makutsi's engagement is imperiled when her fianc, Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, hires her old nemesis, mantrap Violet Sephotho, to sell beds at his furniture store. Struggling to keep her man, Mma Makutsi has to decide between buying food and indulging in a pair of faux-alligator shoes. Mma Ramotswe's beloved little white van seems to be"sick at heart." Should she report its condition to her husband, auto salesman Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who'll surely want to replace it, or try to get one of his apprentices to fix it behind his back?

Episodes in Smith's series, like those in a long-running sitcom, have stopped competing with each other as better or worse and instead have gelled into a self-contained world into which audiences enter with pleasure and gratitude. Here's more of the same.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from March 15, 2009
In stressful times, Botswana detective Precious Ramotswe always finds solace in a steaming pot of red bush tea. But its going to take many cups of the richly hued liquid to help her cope with current woes. Topping the list is the state of Mmas tiny white van, which has developed an ominous rattle she can no longer ignore. Meanwhile, at the detective agency, Mma Ramotswe and her very opinionated assistant, Grace Makutsi, are enlisted by football coach Leungo Molofololo to determine why his once-successful team has lost so many games. (Could there be a traitor among the ranks?) The case will certainly be a challenge. Mma Ramotswe knows nothing about football, and Mma Makutsi is distracted. Her fianc', Phuti Radiphuti, has hired Violet Sephotho, Graces one-time nemesis at the Botswana Secretarial College, to work at his furniture store. (Grace fears that glamorous, manipulative Violet is out to steal her man.) Grace trusts Phuti, but she knows men are weak. They cannot help it, she muses, they are dazzled, just as a mouse is hypnotized by the swaying of a cobra. And then the cobra strikes and it is all over for the mouse, just as it is for the man. Scotsman McCall Smiths rich regard for Botswana resonates in this warm, witty, and wise tenth installment in the internationally best-selling series. What fan can resist?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)