THE MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS
Alexander McCall Smith
Pantheon Books
Mystery
ISBN: 9780375424489

• Read an Excerpt

We welcome Precious Ramotswe with open arms as she continues to solve the personal and often deceptively simple problems of her fellow Botswanians. Miracles, it seems, can happen in unexpected and often unrecognized ways, as she and her Associate Detective Mma Makutsi discover.

Someone is leaving threatening notes addressed to Mma Ramotswe at the Speedy Motors garage, owned by her husband and the location where the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is found. Disclosing the suspected poison penman could jeopardize the friendship and loyalty of someone close to them, so she must use her most diplomatic means of uncovering the source of the threats, then resolving the situation in her own inimitable way.

A larger mystery requires finding the lost family of a woman who always suspected that the parents who raised her were not her parents at all, but no evidence exists to prove otherwise. Her mother and father are now dead --- or “late,” as they are described in the charming musical language of Botswana. The search leads down some fascinating and troubling byways of Botswana’s past, as Mma Ramotswe travels to surrounding villages to meet with people who might shed light on a ticklish situation.

A third possible miracle is the discovery by Mma Ramotswe’s husband of a doctor who may be able to cure the condition that has crippled their foster daughter, consigned for life to a wheelchair.

Meanwhile, now that the date is set for Mma Makutsi and her prosperous fiancé Phuti, they are looking for a marital bed --- an activity that proves not only embarrassing for them but could threaten their future.

We are treated to the introspections that reflect the fading culture of this ancient society, as Mma Ramotswe finds doodles by her assistant linking her name to her fiancé's in the way of all young women in love. “Women, thought Mma Ramotswe, are sometimes like plump chickens in the yard, while outside, circling the fence, were the hyenas, the men. It was not a happy way of envisaging the relation between the sexes, but time and time again she had seen this particular drama played out in exactly that way. And hyenas, one had to admit, were surely destined to break the hearts of chickens; they could do nothing else.”

On the subject of being “traditionally built” --- the euphemism that best describes our heroine as a comfortably padded woman --- she …“considered it one of the very worst features of modern society that people should be ashamed to be of traditional build, cultivating instead a look that was bony and positively uncomfortable. Everybody knows, she thought, that we have a skeleton underneath our skin; there’s no reason to show it.”

That THE MIRACLE AT SPEEDY MOTORS debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list is neither a mystery nor a miracle. Alexander McCall Smith has created a most charming and unique detective, collecting a growing base of admirers and ardent fans with each new adventure. Mma Ramotswe has become a beloved emissary of the rich culture and folk wisdom of Botswana, so lovingly portrayed by McCall Smith, who taught law and ethics in his adopted country.

This gentle narrative is without breathtaking chase scenes (unless you discount the shopping cart pursuit through a local grocery store) or cliffhangers (oh wait, there is that meditation at the precipice overlooking Mma Ramotswe’s home village) that typify most detective novels. And yet it would be inaccurate to describe any of the nine delightful stories in this series as “cozies.” There’s no one quite like our traditionally built Mma Ramotswe, and to pigeonhole her even into a mystery or detective genre would cramp her style.

    --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

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