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A new favourite! I know, I know. I’m late to Precious Ramotswe and her wonderful business, and I shouldn’t have waited so long to enjoy these books. I loved this first book in the series. Funny, good-natured, good-hearted and poignant.

How a white Scotsman got into the head of a black lady in Botswana (or vice versa) is beyond me, but thank goodness for us readers that he did. She is absolutely delightful. “Mma Ramotswe was not tall—being blessed with generous girth, rather than height…��

Precious’s beloved father has worked all his life in the mines to amass an impressive cattle herd, and when he dies too young, she is scathing of the mining industry. She describes his terrifying life underground and how the wealthy owners take advantage of black workers.

“The Sotho miners used to sing ‘The mines eat men. Even when you have left them, the mines will still be eating you.'��

When she decides to cash up the cattle herd and establish the first detective agency run by ladies (well, A lady and a secretary/clerk), she is very business-like. She does things herself, approaches the bank, finds a house, finds an office, hires a secretary, and looks for business. Her first clients do end up being ladies checking up on husbands, but she quickly graduates to fraud and kidnapping, often for men's clients who are comfortable talking to her.

We never forget this is Botswana, specifically Gaborone, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert and all that represents, including the wildlife, really wild �� life. She shoots a croc, suspecting it’s responsible for a disappearance.

“She took a knife and slit through the creature’s belly. The leather was soft, and the stomach was soon exposed.��

She deals with a cobra and then there are witch doctors.

But it’s hers. Standing under the night sky she’s drawing “the dry clear air into her lungs. And she thought: I am just a tiny person in Africa , but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.��

Another time: “Dusk was approaching, and the sky was streaked with gold. This was her favourite time of the day, when the birds went dipping and swooping through the air and the insects of the night started to shriek. In this gentle light, the cattle would be walking home and the fires outside the huts would be crackling and glowing for the evening’s cooking.��

There are plenty of flashbacks to bad episodes in her life, but her overall attitude is one of finding the joy in everything. She doesn’t complain, but she certainly wonders why some people are so ignorant or mean-spirited.

I enjoyed the various characters, the descriptions of a very different part of the world from mine and why Mma Ramotswe loves it so.

Disclaimer �� I had seen the TV series so was predisposed to like the books, but if they’d fallen short of expectations, I’d say so. Nope. Terrific book.