My wife has had a handful of volumes from Alexander McCall Smith’s wonderful private detective series set in Botswana. I had long wanted to get going on them, but she had loaned out the first volume and we don’t know who has it. Last week I was pleased to find a copy of the first volume in our laundry room, where people in my building sometimes deposit unwanted books. I am so glad I began reading it. I was hoping for detective stories with a harder edge, but that didn’t happen. Instead I got something better. The main character, Mma Precious Ramotswe, “a traditionally built woman,” is the most likeable character I’ve encountered in years. She’s a real woman with real problems, but with rare strength and courage, as well as a fine zest for life. This sounds like a cliche, but I am loathe to go into details for fear of spoiling plots. You can find out more on the author’s website, if you want.

I am almost done with the fourth. Now I have to take a break again, because we’re missing the fifth and sixth, and I don’t want to go straight to the seventh, which we have. Apparently there’s an eighth out now too.

By the way, I enjoy reading mysteries not just for the mystery, but for the milieu they usually reveal to me. Indeed, these books would have been a disappointment if mystery was all I had wanted. The stories are all about the characters and their world in Botswana. Along the way Mma Ramotswe and her assistant, Mma Makutsi, deal with a variety of cases and moral questions.