The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party

Like catching up with old friends over a cup of bush tea. ( )

My blog post about this book is at this link. ( )

I was very excited when I saw the book on the 'pickup from hold' shelf, ready for me yesterday. A few pages in, and I was comfortably happy in the world of Mma. Ramotswe and her Botswana. Now I am a little sad... because I have finished it and have to wait until the next book (or reread it). ( )

These are enjoyable "light" reads that give the reader a real sense of everyday life in Botswana. For those who are interested in more complex novels about life in Botswana, I encourage you to check out books by Unity Dow, the first female member of Botswana's Supreme Court. ( )

I’ve read each of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series since discovering the first book, and I realise I haven’t bothered reviewing them since that first one. To love one is to love them all, for the gentle wisdom and cosy approach to crime solving, where the plots are mostly vehicles for the atmosphere and endlessly fascinating commentary made about humanity in general and Botswana in particular. So perhaps it isn’t fair of me to decide to review this one, since I found it dragged quite a bit and, while still an easy read, one that could have been much more interesting… after eleven wonderful, engaging stories, finding one that doesn’t quite bring it all the way home is not something I can feel bitter about, since not even this book provokes anything other than a contented okay then feeling by the end. My main disappointment is not that the gentle pace sometimes seems entirely stuck, since the reader neither wants nor expects the hurly-burly of other crime novels imposed upon Mma. Ramotswe, but that the principal crime plot was vaguely defined, vaguely pursued and vaguely solved. The peripheral mysteries hold up well, but the nonsense with Grace Makutsi’s (or Mma. Radiphuti as she becomes, almost incidentally, at the end of the book) shoes has got to stop; even the author, having paid great attention to them at the start of the book, seemed to lose interest and solved the problem retrospectively.

Each of these books has left me with one idea or concept that I adored, and this one was no exception. The briefly imagined meeting of Mma. Ramotswe’s late father, and Grace’s fiance, men of consideration and manners, representing a remembered version of Botswana, struck me forcibly and sentimentally, perhaps because most of us have people who represent to us, some value or standard that seems to be becoming rarer, but still necessary to society. ( )