Book review: The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith

The twenty-sixth book I read in 2015 is the thirteenth installment in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection, and it's one of the best of the series.  Putting aside the sadness of Mr. Polopetsi's inexplicable absence, I was delighted that this book introduces a new character, who is not exactly new but whose influence has hovered over Precious Ramotswe's life from the first book.  No, not the Daddy, Obed Ramotswe, but someone almost as influential.

Just as Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are honored and pleased to make the acquaintance of this new arrival they already feel they know so well, they, in turn, provide inestimable help and comfort to him in the grand cycle of kindnesses repaid and worth recognized that the series depicts so well.  Continuing the theme, Mma Potokwane, who has been so helpful to the protagonists over the years, finds herself in need -- not a common situation for such a formidable woman -- and is rewarded for her good works by the loyalty and determination of her friends.

This was a delightful book which left me feeling warm and fuzzy ... and slightly wistful that the titular academy remains putative rather than actual.  Well, maybe in a future book in the series....

Summer youth camp

Faith is off to Falls Creek for the first time today and excited about spending the next six days with her friends!  That's Hope hiding under the hat, Alyssa is the tall one, and Emma is saying, "Take the picture already!"  There's a fifth Amigo in their circle, but unfortunately Elizabeth didn't get to go to camp this year.

Book review: The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

Being so enamored of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, I turned to another series authored by Alexander McCall Smith for the twenty-fifth book I read in 2015.  The Sunday Philosophy Club introduces Isabel Dalhousie, the series-titular protagonist, a single, wealthy forty-something journal editor living in Edinburgh.  The book opens with Isabel witnessing the violent, perhaps-not-accidental demise of a young man by falling from the upper circle in a concert hall, a startling opening involving actual death that immediately informs you that this is not going to be in the same comfortable, Mitfordesque vein as his best-known series. Feeling that being the last one to see him alive in the split-second he passes the railing bestows on her a moral responsibility to inquire into the circumstances of his death, she begins to investigate.

It's a crime scene worthy of Lord Peter Wimsey, but Isabel Dalhousie, sadly, is no Harriet Vane. Rather than strong and decisive, she is apologetic and wishy-washy. She dithers and questions herself constantly, which McCall Smith seems to view as the proper attitude for philosophers, though those I've studied (e.g., Plato, Sartre, Kant) present themselves very confidently.  Worse, like Sidney Chambers, she stumbles onto the truth by mere coincidence, after her deductions have led her in the wrong direction entirely.  It's difficult to respect her as the heroine of a mystery series, when she's not presented as being all that clever.

Oh, and the Sunday Philosophy Club of the title never even convenes, let alone has anything to do with the plot of the book.  Precious Ramotswe has nothing to worry about in relation to her sibling-creation, Isabel Dalhousie.

Book review: The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith

The twenty-fourth book I read in 2015 is The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, the twelfth book in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.  If you've been reading the series, then, yes, the wedding is just whose you think it must be.  In addition to the challenges of planning the ceremony, this installment deals with the main mystery of cattle being killed on a ranch.  There are many suspects, all with plausible motivations, and the way the case is solved is unique to the style of this series, which is more about reconciliation than accusation.

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?

Book review: The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth

The twenty-third book I read in 2015 is The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth.  It predates The Elements of Eloquence, which I read back in January, and is actually his first book, constructed Frankenstein's-monster-like from his pre-existing blog.  Given its cut-and-paste origins, the structure is still impressive, as he manages to lead from one section to another and then cycle back to the beginning organically, as in TEoE.

I prefer Eloquence, as it's a bit less scattershot-trivia and a touch more educational about the language, but if you're interested in meandering etymologies and false cognates, you'll certainly enjoy this book.

I will say that book-writing success seems to have been the death of the blog that started it all.  Seven posts thus far in 2015?  Black pot living in a glass house though I am, at least I can blame my reticence on sheer inertia rather than on monetizing my previously-freely-bestowed thoughts.

Book review: The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith

The twenty-second book I read in 2015 is The Double Comfort Safari Club, the eleventh book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.

I'm sorry to say that continuity issues once again raise their ugly heads in this installment, as they so often do: sorry because they are the one thing which precludes me from being thoroughly delighted with the series.  As usual, for whatever reason, they once again are concerned with Mma Makutsi.  Despite the out-of-the-blue revelation in Blue Shoes and Happiness that she was widowed in the past, this book asserts that she has never before been in a relationship like the one she has with her fiance, Phuti Radiphuti.  From everything that we have come to know about Grace, Phuti being her first romance is more believable than a backstory of lost love; I can't help but believe that the author was thinking of her brother who died of AIDS in Grace's small rented room earlier in the series and somehow fumbled him into a former husband.

The shadow of real physical tragedy looms over our beloved characters in this book, and it's a jarring experience; we've become so used to Mma Ramotswe dealing with small, everyday problems that it's a shock to find real life-changing circumstances intruding on their day-to-day routine -- not unlike, perhaps, the way they intrude on real people's lives when they are least expecting them.  It unbalances expectations a bit, moving forward, if we can't be assured of happy endings for our protagonists. Without spoilers, in this case, while lives are altered, there are none left devastated, though it's up to Mma Ramotswe and the even-more-indomitable Mma Potokwane to step in and put things right in the end.