Precious Ramotswe
Created by Alexander McCall Smith

Now here's a private eye who's REALLY off the beaten track.

PRECIOUS RAMOTSWE is a fat, rather jolly young heiress from Botswana who, much to everyone's dismay, sells off her father's prized cattle to start up The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and become her country's first female detective.

The buzz is that Mma Precious is a hoot, a likable cross between Miss Marple and Ms. Kinsey Millhone, a sassy, self-assured, good-natured woman who takes little guff from anyone and relies on an almost innate sense of wisdom and a keen understanding of human nature to keep her clients happy. She's not one to obey any conventional notion of what an unmarried woman should do, or afraid to stand out in the crowd. The small house the agency operates out of on the outskirts of Kalahari boasts a brightly-painted sign that reads:

THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY.
FOR ALL CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS AND ENQUIRIES.
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED FOR ALL PARTIES.
UNDER PERSONAL MANAGEMENT.

Since she's the only game in town, Precious seems to attract all manner of peculiar cases, from helping clients with alternating personalities to investigating the source of the human bones in a witch doctor's magic kit. But she takes it all on without batting an eye, relying on her bible, The Principles of Private Detection, and the sense God gave her. As the series progresses, Precious even considers marriage, and her agency soon expands to offer car repair and beauty pageant security. Imagine going to Mike Hammer for a lube job?

And through it all, as Otto Penzler puts it, author Smith maintains a "gently ironic tone...full of good humor towards his lively, intelligent heroine and towards her fellow Africans, who live their lives with dignity and with cautious acceptance of the confusions to which the world submits them. Precious Ramotswe is a remarkable creation..." And the (London) Times Literary Supplement thought enough of the first book in the series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, to consider it one of its "International Books of the Year and the Millennium."

Mma Ramotswe may not be the most hard-boiled of dicks, but she displays plenty of savvy and she's her own woman -- and if you ask me, detective fiction's the better for having someone like her around.

Alexander McCall Smith has written over forty books, including his collection of African stories, Children of Wax, which has received considerable critical acclaim and been the subject of an award-winning film.

UNDER OATH

  • "The author's prose has the merits of simplicity, euphony and precision. His descriptions leave one as if standing in the Botswanan landscape. This is art that conceals art. I haven't read anything with such unalloyed pleasure for a long time."
    (Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph)
    .
  • "An African ' Miss Marple' . . . superb."
    (Sunday Times)
  • "It may not be exactly 'tough gumshoe stuff' but the no-nonsense way Botswana's top lady detective rises to her thorniest challenge suggests that she could teach Spenser and Kinsey Millhone a few things about keeping the bad guys at bay."
    (Dick Lochte, Los Angeles Times)

NOVELS

ALSO OF INTEREST

  • Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook (2009; by Stuart Brown)....Buy this book
    Well, isn't this Precious? Fans of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency can skip the bottle of hooch in the desk drawer and settle in with a nice cup of red bush tea instead. With photographs by Mats Ogren and a foreword by Precious' creator, Alexander McCall Smith, this amply illustrated culinary tour offers an intriguing glimpse into Botswana's traditions and culture, with numerous detours for recipes for stews, fat cakes (doughnuts) jams and other trtaditional delicacies, with the proceeds from the book's sales being shared among several African charities.

TELEVISION

  • THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY)..Buy the DVD
    (2008, HBO)
    Pilot
    Original airdate: March 23, 2008
    Based on characters created by Alexander McCall Smith
    Writers: Richard Curtis, Anthony Minghella
    Directed by Anthony Minghella
    Starring Jill Scott as PRECIOUS RAMOTSWE
    With Anika Noni Rose as Grace Makutsi
    Lucian Msamati as JLB Matekoni
    and Desmond Dube as BK
  • THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY)..Buy the DVD
    (2009, BBC/HBO)
    Series
    Based on characters created by Alexander McCall Smith
    Starring Jill Scott as PRECIOUS RAMOTSWE
    With Anika Noni Rose as Grace Makutsi
    Lucian Msamati as JLB Matekoni
    and Desmond Dube as BK
  • Season One
  • "The Big Bonanza, 2009) March 15, 2009)
  • "Poison, 2009) March 22, 2009)
  • "The Boy With an African Heart, 2009) March 29, 2009)
  • "Problems With Moral Philosophy, 2009) April 5, 2009)
  • "Beauty and Integrity" (April 12, 2009)
  • "A Real Botswana Diamond" (April 19, 2009)

RELATED LINKS

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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"...and I'll tell you right out that I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."