Sadly, sloppy continuity arises again. In this instance, it's Mr. Polopetsi, who, we are abruptly informed, "still worked in the garage occasionally." Where else he would be, the reader wonders? The last we heard of him, he was unemployable due to the time he spent in prison and was both grateful for and dependent on the job he had been given at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The truth, I suspect, is that the character didn't pan out the way the author had planned. At one point, there was a clear expectation that he would take on a supporting role in the detective agency, but I suppose McCall Smith came to the conclusion that, with a male detective on staff, it would no longer be a Ladies' Detective Agency. Still, a simple throw-away line about Mr. Polopetsi getting mechanical work someplace else, or for that matter continuing to have him working at the shop in the background, would have covered the backtrack better than such a sudden write-out.
I am not the only reader to be saddened and confused by McCall Smith's (and his editors') cavalier attitude toward continuity; other readers have raised many of the same issues. It's not that the series is not enjoyable as is, but it's disheartening to know that the author cares less about his own creation than his readers do. In the end, if a writer doesn't respect his own written world, how can he expect the reading public to?
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