Only in Botswana would the tragedy of a tiny white van preoccupy the heart and mind of Mma Precious Ramotswe, chief of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Gabarone.
Again it’s time for celebration among those who follow crime solving in that far-off world, because Alexander McCall Smith is back with Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (Pantheon, $23.95, 224 pages), another inimitably charming chronicle of the kindly lady of traditional build.
As he explains the situation, the plight of the little van is the kind of thing that worries Mma Ramotswe. As a good wife, she fusses about her husband, Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni, driving late at night on bad roads. As an investigator, she has to put her mind to solving the mystery of the losing streak afflicting a local football team, despite the fact that she knows nothing about football and isn’t sure she wants to learn.
Leungo Molofololo, the team’s owner, has a low opinion of women in general, but the Ladies’ Detective Agency is the only one in town and he wants to find out whether his team is being sabotaged from within. He suspects one of the players may be making money by influencing the outcome of the matches and goes so far as to take Mma Ramotswe to her first football game where she watches in bewilderment as nothing seems to happen for 15 minutes. Asked about the progress of the game, Mr. Molofololo tells her tersely that she must be patient.
This is not like cooking, he says. It tells you a lot about the character of Mma Ramotswe that she doesn’t take exception to his rudeness because he is a client and one shouldn’t offend clients. She also keeps in mind the advice of her bishop that there is plenty of work for love to do as a remedy for the troubles of Botswana and the world in general.
The problems of the football team are oddly intertwined with the romance of Mma Ramotswe’s assistant, Mma Makutski, who is engaged to be married but worried about her fiance being stolen by another woman. Once more, it is Mma Ramotswe to the rescue, but she remains haunted by her anxiety over her tiny white van that she fears may be reaching the end of its long and useful life. As she drives down Zebra Drive on her way to work, the van resumed its protests. There was what sounded like a hiccup and then the loud blast of a backfire and … that familiar knocking sound. Her heart sank.
What makes it worse is that Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni runs a car-repair business and is delighted to buy his wife a new van. It is blue and shiny and new and she is politely grateful, yet she still mourns the tiny white van.
In her business as in her life, Mma Ramotswe radiates benevolence, although it is occasionally spiced with a little mischief. She goes about investigating the problems of the Kalahari Swoopers, the failing football team, with a thoroughness that involves interviewing footballers who are flummoxed by being interrogated by a woman.
And the solution is as domestic as a plate, which might be expected of Mma Ramotswe. It is also based on common sense because how can you play football with sore feet?
Mr. McCall Smith has done it again, bestowing on his readers a book imbued with an irresistibly gentle philosophy that presumably reflects his own and more power to him. All we can do is look forward to going back to Botswana.
And nobody should give up on that tiny white van yet. …
The smoke and mirrors of espionage infiltrate domestic violence in Peter Robinson’s All The Colors of Darkness (Morrow, $25.99, 368 pages), that is launched in dramatic style by a hanging that looks like a suicide but turns out to be a hornet’s nest full of hostile intelligence agents warning local police not to get involved.
However, the mixture doesn’t always jell, perhaps because spies are too shadowy by nature for the world of domestic violence and not even the team of Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot can rescue it. Their alliance in this case also is disturbed by Banks’ latest girlfriend, Sophia, who unfortunately also gets in the way of the investigation.
The plot is further complicated by its link to a Shakespearean analogy. Since the victim is Mark Hardcastle, set designer for a local production of Othello, the dark psyche of the traitorous Iago becomes a key to a modern murder. Especially since Hardcastle proves to be a longtime member of the intelligence community, and the second victim in the case is his lover, found bludgeoned to death in their home. Nasty warnings to stay away from the case come from the intelligence community and the clash of the two sides is inevitable.
Banks predictably rebels against the intervention from people he is inclined to disapprove of and resent, and his affair with Sophia suffers. Cabbot is loyal but confused as what is seen as a case closed crime develops tentacles reaching into high-level government operations and Banks risks his reputation to challenge what he concedes he doesn’t always understand.
This is one of Mr. Robinson’s expeditions into darkness, yet his usually well- honed development of sinister characters seems oddly out of tune. His team of Banks and Cabbot are dealing with shadows moving through the mirrors, and neither of them seems as surefooted as usual. Moreover, the presence of Sophia, Banks’ new romantic interest, muddies the plot because she seems hysterically inclined, and misplaced in situations that Cabbot would have taken in her stride. Which of course leaves the reader wondering why Banks didn’t stay with Cabbot and why he doesn’t stay away from Sophia? Stay tuned.
• Muriel Dobbin is a former White House and national political reporter for McClatchy newspapers and the Baltimore Sun.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.