HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

No title (2007)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
3,521763,605 (3.94)103
Fiction. Literature. Mystery. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:

Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladiesâ?? Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswanaâ??s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotsweâ??with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsiâ??navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.
 
There is rarely a dull moment in the life of Precious Ramotswe, and on Zebra Drive and Tlokweng Road many changes are afoot. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wants be put in charge of a case involving an errant husband, and Mma Makutsi is considering leaving the agency, taking her near perfect score on the Botswana Secretarial College typing exam with her. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe has been asked to investigate a series of unexpected deaths at the hospital in Mochudi. Along the way, she encounters other tricky mysteries, and once again displays her undying love for Botswana, a country of which she is justly
… (more)

Member:
Title:
Authors:
Info:
Collections:
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith (2007)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 103 mentions

English (71)  French (2)  Spanish (1)  Finnish (1)  Swedish (1)  All languages (76)
Showing 1-5 of 71 (next | show all)
(audio) Stealing in a print shop, mysterious deaths in hospital, wife wants proof husband cheating on her.
  bentstoker | Jan 26, 2024 |
To me, reading this series is like slipping into comfy slippers and grabbing a soft, warm blanket. Mma Ramotswe is a charming, levelheaded character, and the crimes she handles are never gruesome.
Mma Ramotswe and Botswanna pride themselves on being civil and honest, for the most part.
In this story, there's a lot of unrest at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and the Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Mma Makutsi, Mma Ramotswe's assistant is feeling underappreciated, and decides to pursue another job, and Charlie, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's apprentice, also decides the same thing. Their absence leaves a noticeable emptiness in the office. There is a wife who believes her husband is cheating on her, and there have been 3 unexplained deaths in a local hospital. All will be sorted out, over many cups of tea. ( )
  cjyap1 | Aug 13, 2023 |
This series is a world away from my usual literary tastes--I'm a glutton for the Victorian/Edwardian British sentimental novel, and these are set in modern-day Botswana and introduce a lifestyle that is foreign to me. They were recommended to me some years ago, and I read several but then stopped. I'm starting to pick them up again.
They're quite smooth reading and narrate the thought processes of the characters in a way that's entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking. I do recommend them!
They deal with a lady detective, her mechanic husband (an uncomplicated, kind, reliable and occasionally self-doubting man), her assistant (Grace Makutsi, graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College, the smartest in the class, but also the least flashy, now engaged to be married, to her own great amazement), and various other people who are part of their lives. There are at least three detective cases being handled with varying degrees of skill, as well as various other small incidents that create a fully-formed, well-realized world. And they drink lots of tea. I'm particularly fond of the concept of making your own life better through..."acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter." ( )
  Alishadt | Feb 25, 2023 |
These cozy mysteries are always a comfort to read and, in re-reading them in print after listening to the audiobooks a number of years back, I’m starting to see the reasons why. For example, this one has an entire chapter devoted to the tea regime at the agency. Tell me what could be more comforting than that. ( )
  wandaly | Dec 28, 2022 |
Turns out I'd already read this but had forgotten as is all too easy to do with McCall Smith's books. ( )
1 vote Stephen.Lawton | Aug 7, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 71 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors (13 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Alexander McCall Smithprimary authorall editionscalculated
Kankaanpää, JaakkoTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kern, ÉlisabethTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
This book is for
Tom and Sheila Tlou
First words
It is useful, people generally agree, for a wife to wake up before her husband.
Quotations
Some said that they would have liked to live before the colonial era, before Europe came and carved Africa up; that, they said, would have been a good time, when Africa ran its own affairs, without humiliation. Yes, it was true that Europe had devoured Africa like a hungry man at a feast—and an uninvited one too—but not everything had been perfect before that. What if one had lived next door to the Zulus, with their fierce militarism? What if one were a weak person in the house of the strong? The Batswana had always been a peaceful people, but one could not say that about everybody. And what about medicines and hospitals? Would one have wanted to live in a time when a little scratch could turn septic and end one's life? Or in the days before dental anaesthetic? Mma Ramotswe thought not, and yet the pace of life was so much more human then and people made do with so much less. Perhaps it would have been good to live then, when one did not have to worry about money, because money did not exist; or when one did not have to fret about being on time for anything, because clocks were as yet unknown. There was something to be said for that; there was something to be said for a time when all on had to worry about was the cattle and the crops.
"Men and boys think that we would like to be them," she said. "I don't think they know how pleased we are to be women."
Great feuds often need very few words to resolve them. Disputes, even between nations, between peoples, can be set to rest with simple acts of contrition and corresponding forgiveness, can so often be shown to be based on nothing much other than pride and misunderstanding, and the forgetting of the humanity of the other—and land, of course.
It was so bright outside, with the winter sun beating down remorselessly, and the air thin and brittle, and everything in such clear relief. Under such light our human failures, our frailty, seemed so pitilessly illuminated. Here he was, a mechanic, not a man who was good with words, not a man of great substance, just an ordinary man, who had loved an exceptional woman and thought that he might be good enough for her; such a thought, when there were men with smooth words and sophisticated ways, men who knew how to charm women, to lure them away from the dull men who sought, so unrealistically, to possess them.
Mma Ramotswe sighed. "We cannot make all our clients happy, Mma. Sometimes, maybe. It depends on whether they want to know what we tell them. The truth is not always a happy thing, is it?"
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Literature. Mystery. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:

Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladiesâ?? Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswanaâ??s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotsweâ??with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsiâ??navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.
 
There is rarely a dull moment in the life of Precious Ramotswe, and on Zebra Drive and Tlokweng Road many changes are afoot. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wants be put in charge of a case involving an errant husband, and Mma Makutsi is considering leaving the agency, taking her near perfect score on the Botswana Secretarial College typing exam with her. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe has been asked to investigate a series of unexpected deaths at the hospital in Mochudi. Along the way, she encounters other tricky mysteries, and once again displays her undying love for Botswana, a country of which she is justly

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.94)
0.5
1 5
1.5 2
2 17
2.5 10
3 161
3.5 64
4 360
4.5 31
5 192

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,235,575 books! | Top bar: Always visible