To The Land of Long Lost Friends
Alexander McCall Smith
If you love Africa as much I do, having grown up there, you will love Alexander McCall Smith’s 20th
book, To The Land of Long Lost Friends in the No 1 Ladies Detective
Agency series. Set in Gaborone, Botswana, the stories are humorous, filled with traditional Botswanian wisdom and suffused with a great love for the lovely southern African country. All the books in the series feature the two lady detectives who run the agency, the traditionally-built, infinitely-kind, investigator extraordinaire Precious Ramotswe and her acerbic assistant Grace Makutsi, holder of the as-yet-unparalleled score of 97% at the Botswana Secretarial College.
In the latest book, the intrepid investigators set out to solve a number of mysteries. Cheating husbands, irrational daughters, unsuitable suitors and small village mysteries are pursued by the two and invariably solved .
The narrative shifts back and forth, the plot meanders on, the descriptions are needlessly long, some characters are thinly delineated but yet, this book, as its predecessors, lingers on in your memory long after you have read it. This is why I can hardly wait for the next in this series. There will be no surprises in this one either but the fact that so many people eagerly await it shows Alexander McCall Smith’s extraordinary ability to keep his readers in thrall. Do start reading this series. If nothing else, you will definitely want to visit Botswana, land of its founding president, the great Sir Seretse Khama, gentle people, and mellifluous cattle bells.