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Completed	12 June 2009
Title	The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
Author	Alexander McCall Smith
Published	1998
Quote	"She stopped. It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin."
Review	This book was given to me by my girlfriend from high school: we go way back. She must've known that I could use some lighthearted distraction these days, and that's exactly what this book provides. The book tells the story of a woman in Africa, who up and starts her own detective agency. She has no formal training in this, of course, but opens an office. Quickly, she acquires clients. Some are looking for lost children, or they want to know how their teenagers spend their time, and some clients, of course, want their roving husbands shadowed. It's interesting to read how she just up and starts this business. It gives you ideas. The story was interesting to me because it's set in Africa, a place I know little about. I've only ever been to Egypt, which is technically Africa but still not the real deal. Apparently this is the first novel in the author's detective series, which have been acclaimed. The author writes with authority; after all, he was born in Africa and knows a bit about it. This book was a fine, light read, but it's definitely not great literature. I'll leave you now with another quote from the book, which I like because it paints a picture of the environment, and because there's a nice knitting reference. "The kitchen was cheerful. The cement floor, sealed and polished with red floor paint, was kept shining by Mma Ramotswe's maid, Rose, who had been with her for five years. Rose had four children, by different fathers, who lived with her mother at Tlokweng. She worked for Mma Ramotswe, and did knitting for a knitting cooperative, and brought her children up with the little money that there was. The oldest boy was a carpenter now, and was giving his mother money, which helped, but the little ones were always needing shoes and new trousers, and one of them could not breathe well and needed an inhaler. But Rose still sang, and this was how Mma Ramotswe knew she had arrived in the morning, as the snatches of song came drifting in from the kitchen."

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