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Narrated by Lisette Lecat
Alexander McCall SmithUnabridged — 9 hours, 49 minutes
Narrated by Lisette Lecat
Alexander McCall SmithUnabridged — 9 hours, 49 minutes
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The delightful seventeenth installment of the ever-popular, perennially best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series
Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's premier lady detective, is a little short on help. The co-director of the agency, Grace Makutsi, is busy with her own case, her client none other than their erstwhile assistant, Mr. Polopetsi, who has unwittingly involved himself in a pyramid scheme. The agency's other assistant, Charlie, may also need more help than he can offer, as he is newly embroiled in a romance with a glamorous woman about whom the others have their doubts. So when a young Canadian woman approaches Mma Ramotswe with a complex case, it's up to her alone to solve it - with her signature intuition and insight, of course. The young woman spent part of her childhood in Botswana and needs help finding a long-lost acquaintance. But much time has passed, and her memory yields few clues. The difficult search - and the unexpected results - will remind them all that sometimes it's those we think we know best who most surprise us.
In anxious times, we turn to comfort foods. But what about comfort books? Alexander McCall Smith serves up a perfect example in Precious and Grace, the latest in his heartwarming series featuring Precious Ramotswe, founder and owner of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency…
09/19/2016
“Forgiveness is often the solution,” observes Precious Ramotswe toward the end of Smith’s warmhearted, humane 17th No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novel (after 2015’s The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine). Mma Ramotswe is referring to the book’s main case, which involves a Canadian woman in her late 30s, Susan, who spent her childhood years in Botswana and now wants to find Rosie, the nurse maid largely responsible for raising her. Mma Ramotswe places an ad in a Gaborone newspaper, which brings a woman who claims to be Rosie to the detective agency. Grace Makutsi, the agency’s prickly codirector, suspects this Rosie is a fraud, while Mma Ramotswe senses something not quite right about Susan’s quest. Meanwhile, the ladies deal with a couple of minor cases: their assistant Fanwell rescues a stray dog that needs a home, and Mr. Polepetsi, their sometime helper, becomes an unwitting pawn in a pyramid scheme involving cattle. As ever, Smith adroitly mixes gentle humor with important life lessons. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency. (Nov.)
Praise for Precious and Grace and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series
“In anxious times, we turn to comfort foods. But what about comfort books? Alexander McCall Smith serves up a perfect example in Precious and Grace, the latest in his heartwarming series featuring Precious Ramotswe, founder and owner of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Deeply satisfying and joyful, McCall Smith’s series about Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of Botswana’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, can be read as delicious entertainment. Or as wise lessons in humility, tolerance, and forgiveness. Or—and this is the course I recommend—as both.” —Adam Woog, The Seattle Times
“The books, like their author, have charm. You cannot overstate the power of this—it’s the missing ingredient in contemporary fiction.”—The Guardian
“Hooked. In thrall. That’s what the reader will be . . . Endearing, amusing, and speckled with truths.” —The Dallas Morning News
“Beguiling . . . McCall Smith’s prose is deceptively simple, with a gift for evoking the earth and sky of Africa.” —The Seattle Times
“A visit with a cast of characters who seem like old and cherished friends.” —St. Petersburg Times
“Utterly charming and deliciously entertaining, [with] characters who are as adept as they are appealing—people who become as familiar as neighbors and as welcome as the best of friends—and who, though steady in their beliefs and devotions, will still constantly surprise and amaze.”—Chicago Tribune
05/01/2016
In her 17th outing, Botswana lady detective Precious Ramotswe has a big case on hand: helping a Canadian woman raised partly in Botswana find a long-lost friend. With codirector Grace Makutsi helping their assistant Mr. Polopetsi disentangle himself from a pyramid scheme and second assistant Charlie wrapped up in a hot romance with a woman the others distrust, Mma Ramotswe is on her own. With a ten-city tour.
Sept. 7, 2016
Three new problems, only one involving an actual client, for the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.Susan Peters was born in Molepolole and spent four years of her childhood in Gaborone, but she’s passed her adult life in Toronto. Disappointed in love, she’s looking to connect to her past, and she wants Mma Precious Ramotswe and her associate, Mma Grace Makutsi, to find her childhood home and the nurse she remembers only as Rosie. The blurred photograph of Rosie she shares with Botswana’s foremost detective agency (Chance Developments, 2016, etc.) isn’t much of a lead, but the sleuths, aided by their associate Charlie, get down to work. Other matters repeatedly upstage the case. Fanwell, the assistant mechanic at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors—the company owned by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe’s husband—has run over a dog that’s become perversely attached to him and insists on returning to the agency no matter what. And Mr. Polopetsi, who divides his professional hours between teaching chemistry and consulting at the agency, has added a new activity: going around Gaborone pushing shares in the Fat Cattle Club, an investment opportunity that Mma Ramotswe instantly recognizes as a pyramid scheme. As usual, there’s even more low-level intrigue simmering in the background, from a lovelorn man’s plea to Mma Ramotswe to help him find a nice girl to the detective’s midnight encounter with a snake to the nomination of business consultant Violet Sephotho, Mma Makutsi’s sworn enemy, as Woman of the Year. The result is a gossamer web that feels miscellaneous even by the loose standards of this celebrated franchise. More than ever, the rewards are local and properly humble, as in every moment experience and wisdom triumph over the blinkered clichés they regularly confront.
| BN ID: | 2940171140748 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 10/11/2016 |
| Series: | No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series , #17 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 1,158,495 |
CHAPTER ONE
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Precious and Grace"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Alexander McCall Smith.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
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