Tag: Alexander McCall Smith

How to Raise an Elephant by Alexander McCall Smith

How to Raise an Elephant by Alexander McCall Smih

The long-running No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series relies on a careful balance between new stories — usually cases that the agency is called on to solve — and deeper development of its continuing characters. Too much of the former, and it runs the danger of reading like an episode of old-style television: dramatic events that leave …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/07/23/how-to-raise-an-elephant-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

To the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith

To the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith

To the Land of Long Lost Friends begins with a wedding and moves quickly to a funereal subject. And it was on the way [to the catering tent] that Mma Ramotswe suddenly gripped Mr J.L.B. Matekon’s arm. “I have seen a ghost, Rra,” she said, her voice filled with alarm. He looked at her in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/02/03/to-the-land-of-long-lost-friends-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

The Colours of All the Cattle by Alexander McCall Smith

The Colours of All the Cattle

The back cover of The Colours of All the Cattle calls this book, the nineteenth in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, “the one with the election.” Indeed, a special election for a seat on the Gabarone city council dominates the stories told in The Colours of All the Cattle. The council is closely …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/04/29/the-colours-of-all-the-cattle-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith

The House of Unexpected Sisters

“That’s the mystery series where no one dies, right?” said Kid One. Yes it is, I said. “Well how can there be danger?” Ah, that’s the genius of this series, isn’t it? And oh, sweet youth, to think that death is the only kind of peril that’s strong enough to drive a story. Heartbreak, humiliation, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/05/31/the-house-of-unexpected-sisters-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith

Precious and Grace begins with Mma Ramotswe, founder and proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, reflecting on the people in her life: people who are late, others who are still with us; family, particularly her husband Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; friends and colleagues, from the formidable Mma Potokwani who runs the local orphanage to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/10/12/precious-and-grace-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

Wrapping Up

Time for some short takes, to mostly clear the desk for the coming year. The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest. In the fourth of her five Clockwork Century novels, Priest takes a stab at telling her story mostly from the point of view of an unsympathetic narrator. Rector Sherman is an addict, hooked on the “sap,” …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/12/22/wrapping-up-2/

The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith

Two plots carry the action forward in The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café, the fifteenth in Alexander McCall Smith’s series about Botswana’s first detective agency run by women. In slight contrast to its immediate predecessor, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, the two plots are not both cases taken on by the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/08/the-handsome-mans-de-luxe-cafe-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith

One of the pleasures of reading deeply into a series is the sense of stories arising naturally from the personalities of the characters as the author has shown and developed them over the course of many books. The banter between Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin is freighted with but not weighed down by the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/04/26/the-minor-adjustment-beauty-salon-by-alexander-mccall-smith/

To Be Read 1

The good news is that at present I can buy books faster than I can read them. The bad news is that at present I can buy books faster than I can read (and review) them. Here are some new things that have appeared (somehow!) in the to-be-read pile, along with what some of my …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/05/27/to-be-read-1/