The 18th book in this much-loved, long-running series is one of McCall Smith's best efforts. Botswana’s first female private detective, Precious Ramotswe and her co-director Grace Makutsi – who's upped her title again, to Principal Investigating Officer – agree to take on the case of Charity Mompoloki, a young widow with two children to support, who has been fired from her job at an office furniture company in Gaborone, because an important client said she was rude to him. Charity steadfastly maintains her innocence of the charge; and since up until then she had been a top performing saleswoman, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are looking to see what other motive the store owner, Rra Gopolang, might have had to dismiss Charity.
Mma Ramotswe is distracted from the case however, when she sees a photograph in the Botswana Daily News of a nurse named Mingie Ramotswe working in Lobotse. Mma Ramotswe is immediately intrigued: her surname is unusual; she was an only child and besides her and her daddy, there were only a few cousins. She wonders who this Mingie could be. But when she finds out, it turns everything she believed about her family completely upside down.
Then her friend Mma Potokwane warns Mma Ramotswe that her abusive ex-husband, Note Mokoti, has come back to Gaborone, creating more anxieties for Mma Ramotswe (the last time Note returned to Gabarone he tried to extort money from Mma Ramotswe).
How McCall Smith finally resolves all the disparate threads of this story is both clever and emotionally satisfying. His traditional coda at the conclusion of the story reminds us just how powerful is the bond that connects a person with a beloved place.
Click HERE to read the review from Publisher's Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
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