Mike Crowl reviews the latest
Ladies Detective Agency story
The Double Comfort Safari Club
Alexander McCall Smith
Little Brown, $39.99, hbk
Alexander McCall Smith gives the impression of writing a book
a month - this is the 11th outing for the No 1 Ladies
Detective Agency, and he has two other series on the go
as well.
This latest title is as simple in structure as the rest, with
a small cast of characters (most of them familiar from the
previous books) and easy-to-solve mysteries (Mma Ramotswe is
more adept at problems of the heart than puzzles that involve
dozens of clues).
These are written about with the wonderful wit, wisdom and
warmth that are the hallmark of McCall Smith's style.
Four interwoven stories take up most of the book: an American
lady has left money in her will to an unnamed guide at an
unnamed safari camp (not the one in the title, incidentally,
which doesn't appear to play any part in the story); there
are suspicions of an affair; Mma Makutsi's fiance has a nasty
accident and is taken over by an equally nasty aunt, and a
woman who has appeared briefly in the other books tries to
steal a whole house off her lover.
But the bulk of the book concerns the longstanding
characters.
McCall Smith plays with them like a composer writing a series
of variations on a theme.
You love them or you don't. I do.
- Michael Crowl is a Dunedin writer.
- The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency television show is on
VIBE on Tuesdays at 9.30pm.
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