Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

After finishing The Waves, I needed something light to read, so I picked up the second volume in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detictive Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Initially, it was a big chance from The Waves to Mma Ramotswe and I couldn’t read too much before I got slightly annoyed. But soon I had adjusted and was drawn in to Precious Ramotswe’s Botswana.

I ended up liking this second part in the series even more than the first part. I already knew and liked the main characters, Precious Ramotswe, her fiance Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and her secretary Mma Makutsi. This second part was less of a collection of short cases that last one or two chapters like the first book. Instead, it has several story lines and cases that are drawn out longer. I liked that much better than the sequence of shorter cases and stories in the first part.

In this second part Mma Ramotswe is asked by an American woman to find out what happened to her son who went missing ten years earlier. She promotes her secretary Mma Makutsi to assistant detective and gives her her first case to solve having to do a wife having an extramarital affair. Solving this case in a satisfactory way, however, brings up questions of moral importance. In her private life, Mma Ramotswe is pondering her upcoming marriage, and she has to deal with a sudden increase of her family by two when Mr J.L.B. Matekoni unexpectedly brings home two children from an orphanage.

I enjoy Alexander McCall Smith’s descriptions of people, of life in Botswana and of the land itself. He writes with so much obvious love and respect for his characters and for Africa. I loved the subtle wisdoms and bigger questions in the book. They are not obvious, but thrown in in a “by the way” sort of way. But when you stop and pay attention they give so much to think about: what would you do in that situation? In his own typical quiet and unobtrusive way (the way his writing is, really), McCall Smith comments on Africa, on colonialism, on morals and values. Maybe it’s just me, but there seemed more of that in this second volume than in the first.

One example of this is Mma Makutsi’s case of the adulterous wife, but I won’t quote from that part of the book as that would require giving away too much of that storyline. Instead, I’ll give you one other example. This American young man I mentioned disappeared when he was living in some sort of agricultural commune on the edge of the Kalahari Desert where the inhabitants were trying to grow vegetables. When Mma Ramotswe goes out to this now deserted farm, she thinks about all those foreigners coming to Africa to help:

[Mma Ramotswe] was familiar with people who liked to test out all sorts of theories about how people might live. There was something about the country that attracted them, as if in that vast, dry country there was enough air for new ideas to breathe. Such people had been excited when the Brigade movement had been set up. They had thought it a very good idea that young people should be asked to spend time working for others and helping to build their country; but what was so exceptional about that? Did young people not work in rich countries? Perhaps they did not, and that is why these people, who came from such countries, should have found the whole idea so exciting. There was nothing wrong with these people – they were kind people usually, and treated the Batswana with respect. Yet somehow it could be tiring to be given advice. There was always some eager foreign organisation ready to say to Africans: this is what you do, this is how you should do things. The advice may be good, and it might work elsewhere, but Africa needed its own solutions.

This farm was yet another example of one of these schemes that did not work out. You could not grow vegetables in the Kalahari. That was all there was to it. There were many things that could grow in a place like this, but these were things that belonged here. They were not like tomatoes and lettuces. They did not belong in Botswana, or at least not in this part of it.

Finally, I am curious if Mma Ramotswe will ever tell her fiance about the diamond (somehow I think she won’t). There’s a cliffhanger coming from an unexpected corner! If you have read Tears of the Giraffe, you will know what I mean; if not: go read the book and you’ll find out. I just didn’t want to put in any spoilers.

If you are looking for some light, quick, cosy but intelligent reading, I highly recommend the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. I will be looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Alexander McCall Smith has just started writing an online novel at the website of British newspaper the Telegraph. It is called Corduroy Mansions and a new episode is published here every day.

There are other reviews of Tears of the Giraffe here:
Book Haven
Books of Mee

If you have also reviewed this book on your blog, leave a link to your review in the comments and I will add it to the list.

My review of The No.1 Detective Agency, the first part in the series, is here.