Monday 8 June 2009

Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith


It's been almost 2 weeks since I finished reading "Morality for Beautiful Girls" and the good feeling I got from it is sticking with me. Partly from the calming influence of frequently sitting and having tea with Mma Precious Ramotswe, the owner of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency located in Botswana, and her assistant Mma Makutsi. Myself, I prefer Twinnings Earl Grey. Mma Ramotswe likes bush tea (Rooibos) and her assistant, a good, strong black brew.
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Both ladies employ a calm, intuitive approach to the challenges in their daily life and in the work for their clients. This novel is not only about Mma Ramotswe solving cases for clients, but also about her life and community. She is engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni who owns Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. He is having some sort of troubles and the two ladies step up to the challenge of helping him and straightening out his business.
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The approaches that Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi employ are unique. No cloak and dagger stuff, rather a good cup of tea with a client and a heavy dose of comon sense investigation. Both ladies are acutely aware of the Botswana culture of tribal alliances and traditional roles of men and women, using these as tools to facilitate their sleuthing.
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I loved this book, specially that they referred to each other with formal titles. I found the attitudes of both ladies very refreshing and didn't want to start another book afterwards for fear of losing that good feeling.
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I recommend that you visit Alexander McCall Smith's website and learn more about Botswana and his other books in this series. This is the third book and I was able to follow along quite well without having read the previous two, which I plan to remedy as soon as time permits.

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