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.
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