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    Precious and Grace: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (17)
    Precious and Grace: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (17)
    Precious and Grace: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (17)
    Ebook297 pages4 hours

    Precious and Grace: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (17)

    By Alexander McCall Smith

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    About this ebook

    Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.

    Mma Makutsi, who has recently been promoted to co-director, has been encouraging Mma Ramotswe to update to more modern office practices. An unusual case, however, will require both of them to turn their attention firmly to the past. A young Canadian woman who spent her early childhood in Botswana requests the agency’s help in recalling her life there. Precious and Grace set out to locate the house that the woman lived in and the caretaker who looked after her many years ago. But when the journey takes an unexpected turn, they are forced to consider whether some things are better left in the past.

    Mma Ramotswe dispenses help and sympathy with the graciousness and warmth for which she is so well known, and everyone involved is led to surprising insights into the healing power of compassion, forgiveness, and new beginnings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group
    Release dateOct 11, 2016
    ISBN9781101871362
    Precious and Grace: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (17)
    Author

    Alexander McCall Smith

    Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the highly successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which has sold over twenty-five million copies. Since then he has devoted his time to the writing of fiction and has seen his various series of books translated into over forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the 44 Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in the Scotsman, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the Von Igelfeld series and the Corduroy Mansions novels.

    Read more from Alexander Mc Call Smith

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    Reviews for Precious and Grace

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    186 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Another great instalment in this series. It's not often that I'll bother sticking with a series to book 17 but Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series is it! Another lovely outing.
    • 4/5
      Book number 17 in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. In this one, Fanwell accidentally acquires a dog, Mr. Polopetsi gets involved in a shady business scheme, and the ladies help a Canadian woman who spent her childhood in Botswana and has returned looking for people she once knew and places she half-remembers.

      As usual, this is just pure, warm, comfort reading, perfect for when you're having a stressful day. It is also one of the installments where I'm genuinely curious to see how the investigation comes out, although, of course, that's not really about the plot, any more than anything else in this series is.

      Seventeen books in, and I'm still amazed that I've never gotten tired of these, but I'm certainly not complaining!
    • 3/5
      Digital audiobook performed by Lisette Lecat


      Book # 17 in the hugely popular “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” series, has Mma Precious Ramotswe and her “co-director” Mma Grace Makutsi at loggerheads once again over updating office practices vs relying on tried and true methods. This time their cases include a Canadian woman, originally raised in Botswana, who wants to reconnect with her nanny, and a closer-to-home case involving a Ponzi scheme. Then there’s the stray dog than Fanwell has brought to the agency.

      I love this series. I enjoy spending time with these people, though I rather missed Mr J L B Matekoni who barely appears in this episode. Mma Ramotswe can always be relied upon to consider carefully the underlying motives and various options for dealing with any problem. While Mma Makutsi is frequently the one to rush forward, perhaps jumping to the wrong conclusion, or arriving at the right answer but for the wrong reason!

      Lisette Lecat does a marvelous job of performing the audio books. She brings these characters to life. 5* for her performance!
    • 4/5
      A quick read, more of the same - not great literature or challenging, but pleasantly familiar, just as I like it
    • 4/5
      The theme of finding home runs through Alexander McCall Smith's “Precious and Grace” (2016), the 17th volume in his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. So does forgiveness, or the need for forgiveness as much for the wronged as for the one who did the wrong.

      This may sound like heavy stuff for a novel that seems light and fluffy when you are reading it, but that is often the case with McCall Smith's novels. There's usually a hard nut or two somewhere in his creamy mixture of chocolate and peanut butter.

      A Canadian woman named Susan who spent her girlhood in Botswana comes to the detective agency asking Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi to find the house where she once lived and, in particular, the woman who cared for her, someone named Rosie.

      Meanwhile Fanwell, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's apprentice mechanic, returns with a stray dog. That dog, it turns out, needs a home even more than Susan does, thus giving Precious two assignments, even if only one has a fee involved.

      Finding Rosie and the place where Susan grew up turn out to be relatively easy, even if the task does involve a close call with a poisonous snake. The real challenge becomes discovering why this woman wants to find Rosie and what she plans to do after she does.

      What's really needed, Precious decides, is not reunion but forgiveness. Forgiveness is grace, and grace is a very precious thing.
    • 4/5
      Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi have been working together at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency for several years now. Over that time, Mma Makutsi has gone from secretary to co-director, largely through her own determination and assertiveness. Charlie, originally one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's apprentices, has been let go from that position, and is now Mma Ramotswe's very part-time assistant--and is starting, at last, to grow up. Fanwell, the other apprentice, is on track to be a qualified mechanic, and is also maturing. Mr. Polopetsi is a volunteer part-time assistant, contributing his special skills when he's needed and not filling in as a chemistry teacher in the schools. Then one day Mma Ramotswe finds out from her friend Mma Potokwani, matron of the orphan farm, that Mr. Polopetsi has a new money-making business scheme, the Fat Cattle Club, which sounds very much like a pyramid scheme. She's got to find out what's really going on before he gets himself into serious trouble.

      A new client also appears, a Canadian woman named Susan Peters, who spent part of her childhood in Botswana, and would like to find her old home, and her old nursemaid. She paints an idyllic picture of her memories of her early years there, and Mma Ramotswe is happy to help her.

      As always, this is a slower-moving, quiet story, more focused on the characters and relationships than intense mystery-solving. It's what I love about these books, and why they remain popular after seventeen entries in the series. Mma Ramotswe is wise and kind but not infallible; Mma Makutsi is difficult, often insecure and suspicious, but ultimately loyal and sound.

      I love these books for their gentleness, their character development, and the recognition that people can be good even though we're all flawed.

      Recommended.

      I bought this book.
    • 4/5
      "Precious and Grace" number 17 (yes, really) in the series is another charming and easy to read cosy mystery from the Pen of Alexander McCall Smith. The women from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency are on the case again. This time, Precious and Grace are searching for the former nanny of a Canadian woman, keen to rediscover her past life in Botswana. While sorting through the lies, red tape and intrigue, Precious must also deal with a potential Ponzi scheme, snakes and a stray dog. Another delightful holiday-read from McCall Smith. Always charming.
    • 5/5
      These books really are the reading equivalent of comfort food. I met someone today who told me that she had "never been able to get on with them." I was surprised because for me it is the opposite: I always expect to enjoy them. They are not deep mysteries but the situations depicted them show an incredible understanding of what makes people tick, and the solutions are dispensed with just a touch of philosophy.

      There are reminders always that the setting is not the West, but Botswana, a country struggling to find its place in the 21st century. Technology is changing the world. Even Precious Ramotswe's husband Mr. J.L.B Matekone comments on how much cars have changed, making them so difficult for him to repair.

      Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are now co-directors of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and that situation breeds its own frictions, and I enjoyed their interaction.

      So if you haven't ever read these, and would like something light and cozy to read, give this series a try. But I would advise starting at the beginning.
    • 5/5
      This is the latest in Alexander McCall Smith's No.1 Ladies' Detectiver Agency series, and, as always it has served to be the perfect antidote for the distressing things I hear on the news every day. Mma Ramotswe and her faithful assistant (or is it now co-detective? Precious can never quite remember) Mma Makutsi are once again busty solving cases. And as usual, none of these are very earth shattering, but all seem to involve showing forgiveness in one way or another. A Canadian woman who was born in Botswana is looking for both her old house and her old nursemaid. Mr. Polopetsi seems to have gotten himself involved in a Ponzi scheme. The horrible Violet Esphotho has been nominated for Woman of the Year, and finally, in the most touching story in the book, Fanwell, who works at teh Tlokwweg Road Speedy Motors has become attached to a stray do he cannot keep.

      How all these problems get solved just might restore your faith in the goodness of mankind. Anyone who has not acquainted themselves with this most cozy of cozy mysteries is truly missing out on something special.
    • 5/5
      Precious Ramotswe is the owner and principal of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency; Grace Makutski is her self-promoting sidekick/secretary/co-director. Together these two take on the problems of the townspeople of Gaborone in Botswana is a down-home, common-sense manner.

      In this seventeenth book in the series, the ladies undertake the task of finding a long-lost nanny for a Canadian woman. They find her but uncover some other truths along the way. Several other perplexing situations present themselves as well – a stray dog who adopts the junior mechanic Fanwell, a business scheme that is too good to be true entangles another part-time employee, and of course there is the ever present nemesis of Grace and Precious – Violet Sephotho – who shows up in their lives once again. Altogether, another fine story with a mystery at its core.

      McCall-Smith writes in a manner that is at once familiar and comforting. It is like sitting down with an old friend who tells you a personal story. Steady pacing moves the story along at a gentle rate, seeming not rushed yet revealing information at just the right moment.
    • 4/5
      Need I say more than I LOVE this series. If I’ve got a cold, they make me feel better. If I’m sad they make me happy. If I’m frustrated, they make me realize what is important in the world.
    • 4/5
      Precious and Grace have the case of finding a Canadian woman's nanny when the woman returns several decades later. But what is her real motivation? Forgiveness is the theme here. This series is repitive, but so very cozy!
    • 5/5
      AMS's affection for his characters and Botswana flow through all his stories, making them shine. I am thankful he's such a prolific writer, because it means each year I get to spend time with these literary friends. Can't recommend this series, and this book in particular, highly enough.
    • 5/5
      If it is October than that means a trip to Botswana to visit with my favorite literary character Precious Ramotswe and all of her friends and family. At the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Mma Ramotswe is presented with a client from Canada who who would like assistance in reconnecting with her childhood Botswana roots. Also keeping Mma Ramotswe busy is a stray dog longing for the right home and Ra Polopetsi who has become entangled with the Bernie Madoff of Botswana. With the aid of lots of Bush tea and her co manager/friend Mma Grace Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe once again helps those in need of her compassion and detective skills,

      I have read all 17 of the novels in this feel good series. Each one gently imparts life lessons to the reader. The theme of this book is forgiveness. A character is hurt very deeply in the past and Mma Ramotswe shows them how freeing forgiveness can be. Another gem of wisdom from this book was shown by way of the stray dog Zebra. Mma Ramotswe observed while watching her children lavish attention on the stray that children who show care to pets are learning to love. Mma Raotswe also sagely points out that arguing takes away from tea drinking time and the less that is said the easier it is mended. Like Mma Ramotswe, I am also married to a mechanic and thus especially appreciate the character of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and his constant vexation with his customer's cars. Over the years I have grown extremely fond of these characters and always look forward to another visit with them in Africa.

    Book preview

    Precious and Grace - Alexander McCall Smith

    CHAPTER ONE

    A GOOD FRIEND IS LIKE A HILL

    D RIVING TO THE OFFICE in her battered white van, down the Tlokweng Road, past the stand of whispering gum trees, Mma Ramotswe, founder and owner of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, allowed her mind to wander. It was easy for your thoughts to drift when you were doing something you did every day—such as driving down the Tlokweng Road, or spooning tea into the teapot while you waited for the kettle to boil, or standing in your garden looking up at the wide sky of Botswana. These were all activities that did not require total and undivided concentration, although her husband, that great garagiste, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, stressed that driving demanded your whole attention. Mma Ramotswe, though, felt it was perfectly possible to drive carefully and yet at the same time let the mind wander. There was not a driver in the country, she imagined, who did not think of other things while driving—unless of course there were, somewhere or other, people who had nothing at all to think about.

    That morning she thought of what she would cook for dinner. She thought of letters she might receive and of the replies she should write. She thought of how she knew this road so well that she could drive it blindfold if necessary, and still get to her destination unscathed, or largely unscathed. She thought of how month by month, year by year, the traffic had got worse, as traffic always seemed to do. Was there nowhere on this earth where traffic got better; where the lines of cars thinned; where one could park virtually anywhere, as one could in the old days? And she thought of the people in her life, the people she would see that day, and the people she would not.

    The people in her life…These, she felt, were of two sorts. Whatever further classifications might suggest themselves, at the outset people could be divided into those who were late and those who were still with us. The ranks of the late were legion, but each of us had a small number of late people who meant something special to us and whom we would always remember. She had never known her mother, who had died when she was still an infant, but her father, Obed Ramotswe, she had known well and still missed as much as ever. Every day she thought of him, of his kindness and his wisdom, of his ability to judge cattle—and men—with such a perceptive eye; of the love he had borne for her and of how his passing had been like the putting out of the sun itself.

    There were other late people, of course: there was Seretse Khama, first President of Botswana and patriot; there was Mma Makutsi’s brother, Richard, who had been called to higher things—as Mma Makutsi put it—from his bed of sickness; there was her favourite aunt, whose cheerful and irreverent remarks had been a source of such joy; there was that unfortunate man in Mochudi who had stepped on a cobra; there were so many others.

    That was the group of late people. Then there was the other group, made up of those who were not late; who were, in some cases, only too obviously present, who touched her life in some way or other. These were her family, her friends, her colleagues, and finally those who were neither friends nor colleagues.

    She considered herself blessed with her family. Some people had family members who were always burdensome, who wanted things, who found fault, who complained about this, that, and the next thing. Or they had family members who were an embarrassment—who prompted the making of comments such as, Well, he’s not all that close a relative—very distant, in fact, or even, We have the same name, yes, but I don’t think we’re related.

    She had no need to say any of that. She had a fine husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She had various aunts in villages outside Gaborone, she had several cousins whom she always enjoyed seeing; and of course she had the two children, Motholeli and Puso, who, although technically foster children, were considered by everybody, including Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, to be her own. She had lost a baby—but that had been a long time ago, and in so far as one could ever get over such a thing, she had done so. She could now think of that baby without being overwhelmed by sorrow; she could think of the brief moment during which she had held her child, that tiny scrap of humanity, and of the inexpressible, overwhelming love she had felt. She could think of that now without her heart becoming a cold stone within her.

    To start with friends: prominent among these was Mma Sylvia Potokwane, matron and stout defender—in every sense—of the orphans entrusted to her care. Mma Ramotswe had known Mma Potokwane for many years and their friendship had been firm throughout, although she could not recall when, and in what circumstances, they had first met.

    But you must remember where you met her first, said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She is not one of those people one could easily forget.

    That was, of course, true: Mma Potokwane was certainly not easily forgotten, but still Mma Ramotswe could not remember any occasion when somebody had said, Mma Ramotswe, this is Mma Potokwane.

    I really do not remember, Rra, she said. I just feel that we have known one another forever. She has always been there—like Kgali Hill or the Limpopo River. Do you remember the first time you saw Kgali Hill?

    But that’s quite different, Mma, he had said. You can’t compare Mma Potokwane to Kgali Hill.

    Mma Ramotswe considered this, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt that one could compare the redoubtable matron to Kgali Hill. Both were solid; both were unchanging; both would not be budged from where they stood.

    Of course there were other friends—Mma Ramotswe was well known in Gaborone and could rarely make a trip to the shops without bumping into somebody she knew, and most of these would be friends of one sort or another. There were old friends whom she had known all her life—people with whom she had grown up in Mochudi—and there were newer friends, those whom she had met during her years in Gaborone: neighbours, friends of friends, fellow attenders at the Anglican Cathedral, members of the Botswana Ladies’ Winter Blanket Committee. This last group met in the months immediately preceding winter and planned fundraising events for their annual blanket appeal. People forgot that Botswana had a winter and that there would be people, poor people, who felt the cold. Just because a country was drenched in sunlight did not mean that the temperature could not drop when the sun went down, especially on the fringes of the Kalahari. On a winter night, with the sky clear and filled with white fields of stars, the cold might penetrate to your very bones, as a dry cold can so easily do. And that was when you needed blankets to wrap yourself in, to make a cocoon of warmth to see you through to the morning.

    So there were the ladies of the Blanket Committee, and they were all her good friends, as were the ladies who attended to her at the supermarket bakery and who always kept the freshest bread for Mma Ramotswe, even though she protested that she did not want any special treatment and would take her chances like anybody else. Then there was the man in the Vehicle Licensing Department who invariably clapped his hands with delight when Mma Ramotswe came in to attend to business on behalf of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and who would shout out, My favourite lady has just come into the office! Oh, this is a very happy day for the Vehicle Licensing Department! That had embarrassed her at first, but she had become accustomed to it and took it in her stride, laughing along with her admirer’s colleagues. She realised that if you worked in the Vehicle Licensing Department, then you might need your moments of levity, and if she could provide those just by stepping in through the door, then she was happy to do so.

    Friends were different from colleagues, of course, although colleagues could also be friends. Being self-employed, Mma Ramotswe did not have a large number of colleagues; in fact, she only had one full-time, permanent colleague, so to speak, although she had a part-time colleague in the shape of Mr. Polopetsi and another, if one took a liberal view of the definition, in the shape of Charlie. Fanwell, the former apprentice and now assistant mechanic, was not really a colleague in the strict sense, as he worked in the adjacent garage owned by Mma Ramotswe’s husband and was really Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s colleague rather than hers.

    The full-time colleague was, as everybody knew, Mma Makutsi—Grace Makutsi, former secretary, graduate magna cum laude of the Botswana Secretarial College, where she achieved the mark of ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations; born in the remote and unexceptional town of Bobonong; survivor…Yes, Mma Makutsi had every right to be called a survivor. She had survived poverty; she had survived the battle for an education; she had lived with a slightly difficult skin and with the necessity of large spectacles; she had struggled for everything she possessed; and at last her ship had come home, unambiguously and magnificently, when she had met and married Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, a kind man, and a wealthy one too, being the proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Store. And together they had had a baby, Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti, a fine young son, and the only purring baby in Botswana.

    That was Mma Makutsi, and Mma Ramotswe, thinking of her now, could only smile at her ways, which were well known, and perfectly tolerable once you became used to them. Mr. Polopetsi, her part-time colleague, was in awe of Mma Makutsi. He was a very mild man, a chemist with a chequered career, who worked in the agency on a voluntary basis because he needed something to do. He had now found a job as a part-time chemistry teacher at Gaborone Secondary School, a job that brought in very little money as it rarely required more than a few hours of his time each week. But the pay did not matter: his wife, a senior civil servant, was the main breadwinner. She preferred her husband to be occupied, and so was happy for him to spend his time on his poorly paid teaching job and his unpaid detective work in the agency.

    And it suited the agency too. Mr. Polopetsi may not be a great detective, observed Mma Makutsi. But he does understand the scientific method and the need for evidence. That is important, Mma Ramotswe.

    Charlie, by contrast, understood very little—at least in Mma Makutsi’s view. He had been an apprentice in the garage, but had lost his job when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been obliged to cut staff. That had been done only when all other avenues had been explored; money was tight, and many cars were now being taken to the larger garages where their complicated needs could be addressed by specialist equipment.

    They are not making cars for people any longer, said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. They are making them for computers. If something goes wrong, they just take out the part and throw it away. Nobody can fix anything these days.

    Charlie had his faults. He was impetuous, being given to making inflammatory remarks in the presence of Mma Makutsi, and his thoughts seemed to dwell almost exclusively on girls. In spite of all this, though, Mma Ramotswe had been unwilling to see him cast adrift and had employed him in the agency as what Mma Makutsi insisted on calling a Junior Probationary Apprentice Detective. Her insistence on this humiliating title rankled with Charlie, but he was grateful for such scraps of status as the job gave him, and even Mma Makutsi had to admit that he was making an effort. There was a long way to go, though, and she was watching him.

    Those, then, were the categories of friends and colleagues. That left those who were neither friends nor colleagues, a group that in turn was divided into those who were simply unknown—people who clearly existed but who had yet to be met—and those who were known. It was this last set that was most delicate and troublesome, as it embraced those whom some might assume were enemies. That was not a word that Mma Ramotswe liked. She did not think of others in this way, as from an early age she had been imbued with the message that one should love one’s enemies, and if one loved one’s enemies then surely they ceased to be enemies. That message of love had been taught at Sunday School in Mochudi, when, along with thirty other children, the young Precious Ramotswe had been taught to recite the precepts of the good life. You respected your father and mother, along with a large number of others including teachers, elderly people, government officials, and policemen. You were not greedy, envious, or impatient, although you might feel all of these with some regularity. You never cast the first stone nor did you notice the mote in your neighbour’s eye when you so clearly had a plank in your own. And of course you forgave your enemies.

    Mma Ramotswe had tried to live according to these rules, and had, for the most part, succeeded. But if asked whether there was anybody who might be unfriendly towards her, she had to admit that yes, there was somebody to whom that description might be applied, although she had not asked for her enmity and had never sought to perpetuate it. This person, Violet Sephotho, was regrettably an opponent, but only because she—not Mma Ramotswe—had decided to adopt that position, and were peace to be offered Mma Ramotswe would willingly accede. And there was another thing: although this person was hostile to Mma Ramotswe, her real target was Mma Makutsi, who had no compunction at all in declaring that between her and Violet Sephotho there existed a state of hostility that was to all intents and purposes undeclared war.

    Violet Sephotho had been at the Botswana Secretarial College at the same time as Mma Makutsi. Their respective attitudes towards the college could not have been more different: for Mma Makutsi the college represented the Parnassus to which she had long aspired—the institution that would deliver her from her life of poverty and struggle and equip her for a career in an office. For that she was profoundly and unconditionally grateful. She was completely committed to her studies the day they began; she never missed a lecture, and always occupied a seat in the front row; she completed every exercise and assignment on time and absorbed every piece of advice given by her tutors. At lectures she listened in respectful silence, writing everything down in the blue-bound notebooks that cost more than she could really afford—the purchase of a new notebook meant no lunch for a week; buying a textbook meant the forgoing of transport for at least a month. And when she graduated, on that unforgettable day, amidst the ululations of the proud aunts, she swore to herself that she would never forget the debt of gratitude she owed to the college and its staff.

    Violet Sephotho felt none of this loyalty. She had taken up her place at the college because nothing else had turned up. Her examination results at school were indifferent, and had she applied to the University of Botswana she would have been summarily rejected. She might have secured a place on a vocational course, perhaps being able to train as a nursing auxiliary in a clinic or as a hospitality assistant in the hotel trades school, but both of these involved commitment and willingness to work, which she simply did not have. For Violet, the Botswana Secretarial College was distinctly beneath her dignity—it was a place more suited to dim provincial nobodies like Grace Makutsi than to the likes of her. The college lecturers were, in her view, a sad bunch—people who had obviously not found real jobs in commerce or industry and who were content to spend their time drumming useless information into the heads of young women who would never be more than the second-rate occupants of dead-end jobs.

    Mma Makutsi had been scandalised by Violet’s behaviour. She found it hard to believe that anybody could so blatantly paint her nails during accountancy lectures, blowing ostentatiously on her handiwork to dry it more rapidly even while the lecturer was explaining the principles of double-entry book-keeping. Nor could she believe that anybody would keep up a running conversation with like-minded companions, discussing the merits of various men, while no less a person than the vice-principal of the college tried to demonstrate how a properly devised system of filing could save a lot of trouble and anxiety in the future.

    Violet eventually graduated on the same day as Mma Makutsi, but while the latter covered herself in glory and was singled out by the principal herself in her address, Violet scraped past with a bare fifty per cent, the lowest pass mark possible, and only awarded, everybody suspected, because the college authorities could not face the prospect of Violet repeating the course and being on their books for another six months.

    In the years that followed, Violet Sephotho lost no opportunity to put down or decry Mma Makutsi. And when Mma Makutsi was taken on by the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, she transferred her venom to Mma Ramotswe and the agency in general.

    The so-called No. 1 so-called Ladies’ so-called Detective Agency, Violet publicly sneered. No. 1 Disaster, more likely, with that Grace—I call her Graceless!—Makutsi from somewhere up in the sticks. Bobonong, I believe—what a place! And that stupid fat lady who calls herself Precious but is really just a big waste of space, thinking she can solve people’s problems! Far better go to a decent witch doctor and get him to sell you some powder than take your issues to that dump! Boring! Big time!

    Mma Ramotswe was aware of all this, and bore it with patience. She had always believed that people who were nasty or unkind to others were only like that because there was something wrong in their lives, and that people who had something wrong in their lives were not to be despised or hated, but were to be pitied. So although Violet Sephotho was in one sense an enemy, this was not of Mma Ramotswe’s making and she would gladly have had it otherwise. Mma Makutsi was not of this view. She thought that Violet Sephotho was the way she was because that was how she was ordained to be.

    You cannot make a jackal into a hyena, said Mma Makutsi. We are what we are. That is just the way it is.

    But sometimes we can change, said Mma Ramotswe. That is well known.

    I do not think so, Mma, said Mma Makutsi. And by the way, Mma Ramotswe, when you say that something is well known, I think that you are just saying what you think. Then you say that it is well known so that people will not argue with you.

    That’s not true, said Mma Ramotswe. But let us not argue, Mma, because I believe it’s time for tea and the more time you spend arguing, the less tea you can drink.

    Mma Makutsi smiled. "Now that, Mma, I think, is certainly well known."

    CHAPTER TWO

    THE DOG WAS ALMOST LATE

    T HOUGHTS ABOUT FRIENDS and colleagues could—and did—occupy the entire journey from Zebra Drive to the offices of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. But now, as she parked her white van behind the building they shared with Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, Mma Ramotswe stopped thinking about the people in her life and began to contemplate the tasks of the day ahead. There were several complicated invoices to draw up, and that, she thought, would take the entire morning. Some weeks ago, at Mma Makutsi’s instigation, the agency had introduced a new system of calculating fees. In the past they had simply charged what they thought a reasonable sum—often, Mma Makutsi observed, on the low side. This was based on the complexity of the enquiry and a rough—indeed, very rough—idea of how much time the matter had taken. Few clients had complained about this, but Mma Makutsi had decided that such a system was no longer acceptable in an age of transparency, when people wanted to know exactly what they were being charged for.

    The days of just thinking of a figure are over, she pronounced. These days, people charge by the hour—by the minute, in many cases. That is the way the world is going. Itemised billing is what they call it, Mma.

    Mma Ramotswe had not been enthusiastic. I do not like those detailed bills. ‘For answering the telephone, 50 pula,’ and so on. That is not the way things were done in the old Botswana.

    But the old Botswana is no more, Mma, retorted Mma Makutsi. This is the new Botswana now. You cannot live in the past.

    Mma Ramotswe wanted to challenge her on that. Why, she wanted to ask, could one not live in the past? If enough people were determined to live in the past, then surely that would keep the past alive. You could go to an old-fashioned hairdresser who braided hair in the way in which they used to braid hair in the past; you could go to a doctor who dressed and behaved as doctors did in your childhood, wearing a white coat and carrying a stethoscope, as doctors used to do; you could patronise a butcher who sold old-fashioned cuts of meat and then wrapped them up in brown paper parcels and tied these parcels neatly up with white string, as all butchers used to be taught to do; you could go to a bank where there was an old-fashioned bank manager who actually knew your name, as bank managers once did…

    But she kept these thoughts to herself. Had she expressed them, she was sure that Mma Makutsi would have made much of it and gone on at great length about modern practices and the need to be competitive. On that point—the need for competitiveness—Mma Ramotswe had difficulty in working out just with whom they needed to compete.

    "We actually have no competitors, when

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