This is the eleventh book in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, set in Gaborone, Botswana, and is one of the best in the series. The slow-moving books (life does not move at a fast pace in traditional Botswana, even in Gaborone, which is the capital of the country, and has some 186,000 residents) feature the owner of the No. 1 Ladie’s Detective Agency, Mma Precious Ramotswe (a traditionally built woman), her assistant and secretary Mma Grace Makutsi (who scored an exceptionally high 97 per cent in her final examinations at the Botswana Secretarial College), and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the proprietor of the Speedy Motors garage on Tlokweng Road, and who is also the husband of Mma Precious Ramotswe (who always refers to her husband as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni). This book is an easy read, and I highly recommend it; just don’t ever expect anything to happen quickly. (It took five books for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to finally get married to Mma Precious Ramotswe, even though they were engaged at the end of the first book.)

Disaster strikes close to Mma Grace Makutsi, the secretary of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, when her fiance, Phuti Radiphuti (they have been engaged for five books in the series, now), loses part of his leg in a accident at the furniture store that he manages (and will someday inherit); it is a double disaster, because Phuti’s No. 1 Auntie takes possession of her injured nephew, and will not let his “s0-called fiancée” near him. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe (‘Mma” is a title of respect for a woman, as “Rra” is a title of respect for a man) is investigating a possible case of adultery, and has been commissioned to find a wildlife guide at a safari club to let him know he has been given a legacy from a woman in America who has left him $3,000 in her will.

One of the cases that Mma Ramotswe has to deal with involves Violet Sephotho, who was at the Botswana Secretarial School with Mma Grace Makutsi (but who did not make anywhere near the final grade that Mma Makutsi made). She is quite beautiful, but appears to have a definite lack of traditional Botswana morals. It appears that she has talked a man into signing a house over to her before getting married; she then filled the house with her relatives and told him that she no longer wanted to get married to him, making it clear that it was the house she was after all along.

By the end of the book Mma Ramotswe has straightened out all the problems intrusted to her care; and while Rra Phuti Radiphuti and Mma Grace Makutsi do not seem any closer to being married, they are at least now happy, which is what counts in the world of Mma Precious Ramotswe.