The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Synopsis of series

Mma Precious Ramotswe is the main character in a series including 17 novels from 1998 to 2016. The country of Botswana is in a sense a character as well, as it is a crucial aspect of how the stories flow and the problems which face her clients. Mma Ramotswe starts up her detective agency when she is 34 years old, using the inheritance from her father to move to the capital city Gaborone to buy a house for herself and find an office for her new business. She feels a detective needs to know about people more than anything, to solve problems for them. Her story is told in the first novel from birth to opening the detective agency in the first novel.

Mma Ramotswe is a Motswana woman who is the protagonist in the series and the main detective. Mma is a Setswana term of respect for a woman; the equivalent term for a man is Rra.

Mma Precious Ramotswe solves cases for wives whose husbands have gone missing, for a school teacher whose son has disappeared by finding the kidnappers, for a wealthy father whose 16-year-old daughter is frustrating him by going out on her own. She helps a man atone for sins of his youth by finding the people he hurt decades earlier. She uncovers a scheme by twin brothers to use one medical degree and certificate between the two of them. She solves a case for herself, when she thinks she must seek a divorce from her first husband, but learns differently when she seeks out his mother. Her personal life has a main sorrow, that her only child lived just a few days, as the child's father beat her during the pregnancy, a story told in retrospect. This led her to decide never to marry again after he left her. Her joy is her engagement and eventual marriage to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who has taken on foster care of a sister and brother from the orphan farm. The cases are set in the cities of Botswana, mainly on the edge of the Kalahari desert, rather than in the desert. There are occasional forays into neighboring nations.

After her first few cases, she purchases a book by Clovis Andersen on detection, The Principles of Private Detection, and then quotes from it throughout the novels when a guide is needed for deciding next steps.

The episodic novels are as much about the adventures and foibles of different characters as they are about solving mysteries. Each novel in the series follows on from the previous one as to setting and plot.

Publication history

The readership was at first small, then gained abruptly in popularity in the US and in England, beyond the author's home in Scotland. The initial books were published in Scotland.

Per Kirkus Reviews, the early novels in this series had their American publication later than in the UK, which published the first in 1998, the second in 2000, and the third, Morality for Beautiful Girls, in 2001. The first three novels appeared in 2002 in the USA. In their review of the first novel in the series, Kirkus Reviews notes that "The first American publication of this 1999 debut has been preceded by two special Booker citations and two sequels, Tears of the Giraffe (2000) and Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001), both forthcoming in the series."

In an item from the Wisconsin Public Radio program, To the Best of Our Knowledge, the first novel "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, was a surprise hit [in the UK], receiving two special Booker citations and a place on the Times Literary Supplement's International Books of the Year and the Millennium list." The UK success did not speed publishers to release it in the USA. "American publishers were slow to take an interest, and by the time The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency was picked up by Pantheon Books, Smith had already written two sequels. The books went from underground hits to national phenomena in the United States, spawning fan clubs and inspiring celebratory reviews."

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies was the first of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels to be printed in hardback, with a very large initial print run of 101,000 copies to meet the anticipated demand, as sales in English of the series to date, in 2004, exceeded five million.

In 2004, the year of the sixth novel's publication, Alexander McCall Smith won the Author of the Year award at the British Book Awards and the Crime Writers Association Dagger in the Library award, both for the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

Reception

The novels have been reviewed in English and in other languages.

Main

Secondary

Settings

Themes and topics of the stories

Issues addressed in the cases

Series Order

1. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998)
2. Tears of the Giraffe (2000)
3. Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001)
4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002)
5. The Full Cupboard of Life (2004)
6. In The Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004 – also known as The Night-Time Dancer)
7. Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006)
8. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (2007)
9. The Miracle at Speedy Motors (2008)
10. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (2009)
11. The Double Comfort Safari Club (2010)
12. The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (2011)
13. The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection (2012)
14. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon (2013)
15. The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe (2014)
16. The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (2015)
17. Precious and Grace (2016)

Adaptations

The novels have been adapted for radio by the author and for television.

Television

The BBC and American television network HBO filmed a series based on the books that stars Jill Scott as Mma Ramotswe and was shot on location in Botswana. The 109-minute pilot was written by Richard Curtis and Anthony Minghella, who also directed. The six 60-minute episodes were written and directed by others, as Mr Minghella died before the series was filmed.

Radio

McCall Smith himself dramatised the series for BBC Radio 4. Thirty-one episodes have been broadcast, the first on 10 September 2004, and the most recent on 5 August 2016. The episodes encompass the first to the sixteenth books. They star Claire Benedict as Mma Ramotswe (except the 2010 episodes, when she was played by Janice Acquah).

Episodes:

1. The Daddy – 10 September 2004
2. The Bone – 17 September 2004
3. The Maid – 24 September 2004
4. Tears of the Giraffe – 1 October 2004
5. The Chief Justice of Beauty – 30 August 2005
6. The Confession – 6 September 2005
7. The Kalahari Typing School for Men – 13 September 2005
8. The Admirer – 20 September 2005
9. How to Handle Men through the Application of Psychology – 18 January 2007
10. House of Hope – 25 January 2007
11. The Return of Note – 1 February 2007
12. The Ceremony – 8 February 2007
13. There Is No Such Thing as Free Food – 1 January 2008
14. The Best Profession for a Blackmailer – 2 January 2008
15. A Very Rude Woman – 3 January 2008
16. Talking Shoes – 4 January 2008
17. The Miracle at Speedy Motors – 25 December 2008
18. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built – 25 December 2009
19. The Seller of Beds – 25 December 2009
20. An Exceptionally Wicked Lady – 2 December 2010
21. Canoeing for Ladies – 3 December 2010
22. A Late Van Just Glimpsed – 3 November 2011
23. The Saturday Big Tent Wedding – 4 November 2011
24. A Man from a Far Place – 20 March 2013
25. The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection – 21 March 2013
26. The Modern Husband Course – 5 February 2014
27. The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon – 6 February 2014
28. The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe – 12 March 2015
29. The Dish of Yesterday – 13 March 2015
30. This Is Not a Rubbish Boy – 4 August 2016
31. The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine – 5 August 2016

Related book

A cookbook associated with the novels was published in 2009; Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook by Stuart Brown, with a foreword by Alexander McCall Smith.