HT reviewer Suhit Bombaywala picks his favourite reads of 2021

I’ve just finished reading book number three of 23 (!) from the Number One Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Morality for Beautiful Girls, too, was a hug for the heart.

The setting for the book, as always, is South Africa’s northern neighbour, Botswana, whose capital is Gaborone. Traversing the dry landscape pocked by green farmlands and pastures and patient folks, “traditionally built” Precious Ramotswe uses common sense and kindness, and the “old Botswana morality” of community bonds, to massive effect as a private detective.

The African female lead character has nothing noirish or traditionally detective-y about her. The term “hard-boiled” would apply here only in the sense of hard-boiled confectionery. It’s a quiet book, quiet as I imagine the savanna is in the afternoon, but great things are at stake.

This time round, in the literal sense, the case might make Precious sick in the stomach. A civil servant thinks his younger brother is being poisoned slowly by the brother’s wife, in order to inherit his property. Precious, under false pretences, goes out to the countryside, to the brother’s house, and stays awhile to see whodunnit.

Meanwhile, Precious’s assistant, Grace Makutsi, stays in Gaborone and snoops around for the Miss Beauty and Integrity Contest. Grace’s job is to see which of the four finalists has, in fact, got integrity; how she picks one tells us about her values as much as about the writer’s characterisation of modern collegians from Botswana. As for Precious’s fiance, Mr JLB Matekoni, will his mental health improve by dint of medication and caregiving from kind Mma Potokwane, manager of the local orphanage?

What Precious finds makes us feel for the family, whose hurt and insecurity rise to the surface and plead to be healed; and, as things are not what they seem, the “poisoner”, too, evokes empathy in us. It all works out, as you would expect, with zero sermonising, startling surprises, and many laughs and heartwarming moments. McCall Smith’s writerly vision, that I’ve discerned in the previous books, also permeates this one – usually, optimism is well founded, plans succeed, people are kind, and society is nice.

I came across the series a few years ago, but it was during my lonely and mentally-ill quarantine in the lockdown that one of the Precious Ramotswe books healed something in me. I look forward to my delightfully entertaining pilgrimage through the series.

Suhit Bombaywala’s factual and imaginative writing appears in India and abroad. He tweets @suhitkelkar.

I’ve just finished reading book number three of 23 (!) from the Number One Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Morality for Beautiful Girls, too, was a hug for the heart.

The setting for the book, as always, is South Africa’s northern neighbour, Botswana, whose capital is Gaborone. Traversing the dry landscape pocked by green farmlands and pastures and patient folks, “traditionally built” Precious Ramotswe uses common sense and kindness, and the “old Botswana morality” of community bonds, to massive effect as a private detective.

The African female lead character has nothing noirish or traditionally detective-y about her. The term “hard-boiled” would apply here only in the sense of hard-boiled confectionery. It’s a quiet book, quiet as I imagine the savanna is in the afternoon, but great things are at stake.

This time round, in the literal sense, the case might make Precious sick in the stomach. A civil servant thinks his younger brother is being poisoned slowly by the brother’s wife, in order to inherit his property. Precious, under false pretences, goes out to the countryside, to the brother’s house, and stays awhile to see whodunnit.

Meanwhile, Precious’s assistant, Grace Makutsi, stays in Gaborone and snoops around for the Miss Beauty and Integrity Contest. Grace’s job is to see which of the four finalists has, in fact, got integrity; how she picks one tells us about her values as much as about the writer’s characterisation of modern collegians from Botswana. As for Precious’s fiance, Mr JLB Matekoni, will his mental health improve by dint of medication and caregiving from kind Mma Potokwane, manager of the local orphanage?

What Precious finds makes us feel for the family, whose hurt and insecurity rise to the surface and plead to be healed; and, as things are not what they seem, the “poisoner”, too, evokes empathy in us. It all works out, as you would expect, with zero sermonising, startling surprises, and many laughs and heartwarming moments. McCall Smith’s writerly vision, that I’ve discerned in the previous books, also permeates this one – usually, optimism is well founded, plans succeed, people are kind, and society is nice.

I came across the series a few years ago, but it was during my lonely and mentally-ill quarantine in the lockdown that one of the Precious Ramotswe books healed something in me. I look forward to my delightfully entertaining pilgrimage through the series.

Suhit Bombaywala’s factual and imaginative writing appears in India and abroad. He tweets @suhitkelkar.