Alexander McCall Smith - "The Miracle at Speedy Motors"

Publ: 2008 ISBN: 978031603007
Rating: ****


This is the ninth book in the infinitely enjoyable and best-selling No 1 Ladies Detective agency series. Mma Ramotswe continues to do what she does best - solve mysteries and philosophise about life in Botswana. Meanwhile Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni does more than just run Speedy Motors. All good clean fun.

“Mma Ramotswe had never been able to understand that, and 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 skeleton underneath our skin; there’s no reason to show it.”

“’Would it nor be better if a man did not have to pay for his wife?’ she asked Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni. ‘I am not one to disturb old customs unnecessarily, but wouldn’t it be better?’
“Rather to her surprise, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was quick to agree. ‘Yes,. It would be better. You pay for a car, you do not pay for a wife.’
Mma Ramotswe looked at him with admiration. ‘That is a very modern view, Mr J.L.B.Maketoni,’ she said, almost adding ‘for a man,’ but not doing so. Men could be modern too, she reminded herself.”

“‘I think I know the answer to your problem, Rra,’ she would say. ‘It is in your bed. That is where the answer lies’.
Such advice would not be well received, and could well be misinterpreted. The client might take it as a disparaging reflection to a wife or husband, for example, and it could be awkward explaining that the solution lay in the mattress rather than in any person upon the mattress. Mind you, that was often the case too, she suspected, but she could not say that either.”

ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH - See The Right Attitude to Rain