One of my favorite book series is the “No. 1 Ladies detective agency”, by Alexander Mcall Smith. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is located in Gaborone, Botswana. It’s proprietor Precious Ramotswe is a lady of “traditional build” and in her late thirties. She has an assistant Mma Makutsi (Mma is the equivalent of Madam in Setswana – the official language of Botswana), a graduate of the Secretarial School , passing out with an amazing 97% (the highest scored by any graduate of that school, we are told). And the series comprises of books which describe the life of Ms. Ramotswe both personal and professional.

The beauty of these books, is that they are mystery novels peppered by common-sense philosophy, and reflections on human behavior – more action and some philosophy make a nice mix. Now that I’m nearing the end of these series, I’ve started on another series by the same author – the Isabel Dalhousie series. Ms. Dalhousie is an older spinster (forty-ish), and the editor of the “Review of Applied ethics” . Thus the book (and I’m on the first of the series) weighs-in greatly on the ethics of our everyday actions – too much me thinks because there is very little going on otherwise. Ms. Dalhousie does not run a detective agency, but she has a penchant for solving problems not her own, and this leads her on some investigative adventures.

Continued in next post . . .here