Vous voulez voir cette page en fran�ais ? Cliquez ici.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

27 used & new from CDN$ 1.39

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Share your own customer images

Search inside another edition of this book

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Alexander Mccall Smith (Author)

4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (206 customer reviews)

Price:	CDN$ 9.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Ordering for Christmas?? This item requires additional time to ship and will arrive after December 25. Need a last-minute gift? Send an Amazon.ca Gift Certificate.

16 new from CDN$ 1.39 11 used from CDN$ 3.14

Frequently Bought Together

Total List Price: CDN$ 44.93
Price For All Three: CDN$ 35.49

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

This item: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Movie Tie-in Edition) by Alexander Mccall Smith
Usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander Mccall Smith
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander Mccall Smith
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Tears of the Giraffe

by Alexander Mccall Smith

4.8 out of 5 stars (51) CDN$ 12.37

Morality for Beautiful Girls

by Alexander Mccall Smith

4.3 out of 5 stars (42) CDN$ 13.13

The Kalahari Typing School for Men: More from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

by Alexander Mccall Smith

4.8 out of 5 stars (9) CDN$ 13.10

The Full Cupboard of Life: More from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

by Alexander Mccall Smith

4.6 out of 5 stars (7) CDN$ 13.10

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies: More from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

by Alexander Mccall Smith

4.8 out of 5 stars (6) CDN$ 14.56

› Explore similar items

Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Anchor; Mti edition (Mar 31 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307456625
ISBN-13: 978-0307456625
Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 10.6 x 2 cm
Shipping Weight: 159 g

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (206 customer reviews)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

From Amazon.com

Penzler Pick, July 2001: Working in a mystery tradition that will cause genre aficionados to think of such classic sleuths as Melville Davisson Post's Uncle Abner or Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee, Alexander McCall Smith creates an African detective, Precious Ramotswe, who's their full-fledged heir.

It's the detective as folk hero, solving crimes through an innate, self-possessed wisdom that, combined with an understanding of human nature, invariably penetrates into the heart of a puzzle. If Miss Marple were fat and jolly and lived in Botswana--and decided to go against any conventional notion of what an unmarried woman should do, spending the money she got from selling her late father's cattle to set up a Ladies' Detective Agency--then you have an idea of how Precious sets herself up as her country's first female detective. Once the clients start showing up on her doorstep, Precious enjoys a pleasingly successful series of cases.

But the edge of the Kalahari is not St. Mary Mead, and the sign Precious orders, painted in brilliant colors, is anything but discreet. Pointing in the direction of the small building she had purchased to house her new business, it reads "THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY. FOR ALL CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS AND ENQUIRIES. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED FOR ALL PARTIES. UNDER PERSONAL MANAGEMENT."

The solutions she comes up with, whether in the case of the clinic doctor with two quite different personalities (depending on the day of the week), or the man who had joined a Christian sect and seemingly vanished, or the kidnapped boy whose bones may or may not be those in a witch doctor's magic kit, are all sensible, logical, and satisfying. Smith's gently ironic tone is full of good humor towards his lively, intelligent heroine and towards her fellow Africans, who live their lives with dignity and with cautious acceptance of the confusions to which the world submits them. Precious Ramotswe is a remarkable creation, and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency well deserves the praise it received from London's Times Literary Supplement. I look forward with great eagerness to the upcoming books featuring the memorable Miss Ramotswe, Tears of the Giraffe and Morality for Beautiful Girls, soon to be available in the U.S. --Otto Penzler --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The African-born author of more than 50 books, from children's stories (The Perfect Hamburger) to scholarly works (Forensic Aspects of Sleep), turns his talents to detection in this artful, pleasing novel about Mma (aka Precious) Ramotswe, Botswana's one and only lady private detective. A series of vignettes linked to the establishment and growth of Mma Ramotswe's "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" serve not only to entertain but to explore conditions in Botswana in a way that is both penetrating and light thanks to Smith's deft touch. Mma Ramotswe's cases come slowly and hesitantly at first: women who suspect their husbands are cheating on them; a father worried that his daughter is sneaking off to see a boy; a missing child who may have been killed by witchdoctors to make medicine; a doctor who sometimes seems highly competent and sometimes seems to know almost nothing about medicine. The desultory pace is fine, since she has only a detective manual, the frequently cited example of Agatha Christie and her instincts to guide her. Mma Ramotswe's love of Africa, her wisdom and humor, shine through these pages as she shines her own light on the problems that vex her clients. Images of this large woman driving her tiny white van or sharing a cup of bush tea with a friend or client while working a case linger pleasantly. General audiences will welcome this little gem of a book just as much if not more than mystery readers.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

ladies detective agency(3)

mystery(3)

alexander mccall smith(3)

private investigation(2)

soccer(2)

botswana(1)

humor(1)

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

	69% buy the item featured on this page: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Movie Tie-in Edition) 4.2 out of 5 stars (206) CDN$ 9.99
	12% buy NO.1 LADIES' 3-BOOK BOX 5.0 out of 5 stars (9) CDN$ 31.41
	8% buy The Kalahari Typing School for Men: More from the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency 4.8 out of 5 stars (9) CDN$ 13.10
	6% buy Tears of the Giraffe 4.8 out of 5 stars (51) CDN$ 12.37

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

206 Reviews

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(6)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (206 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars what a treat!, Aug 13 2008

By	reading mom (BC, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Paperback)

I can't believe it's taken me till now to read this book, what with the buzz around its first publication & subsequent sequels. Anyway, I've just read No 1 Ladies and Tears of the Giraffe and all I can say is that it's taken me way too long to discover Precious and her cohorts.

Amusing reading with enough seriousness to keep one engaged. Lucky me - I have the rest of the series to discover - I hope they are up to the quality of the first two, which are EXCELLENT!

Share these with your teens, too. Good stuff.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4.0 out of 5 stars African Wisdom, Sep 12 2007

By	Jeane FREER "Spiritual Counsellor" (Paris, France) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Paperback)

Written by a man, The No1 Ladies' Detective Agency has enough of a feminist persepctive for me to feel I was reading something actually written for me, rather than feeling as I usually do when reading, that I am trying to take pleasure in literature created for an audience of which I am not a part. McCall Smith' s feminism is simple but fundamental : men should not beat their wives, the better fathers are those who encourage their daughters to be independent and realise their dreams, women have a right to happiness.

These beliefs are just part of the basic philosophy of the central character, Mma Precious Ramotswe, the first lady detective in Botswana, who imparts her basic moral philosophy at the same time - murder is worse than lying, relationships are more important than money, intuition is a kind of knowledge. While all of this philosophy may seem clich�d, as perhaps it is, it appears naturally in the book as part of the character and helps us to understand her approach to solving the cases brought to her.

Woven throughout all of this is a picture of Botswana, considered by Ramotswe, and presumably McCall Smith, as the best and most successful country in Africa. Independent from the British since 1966, there is enormous pride in her accomplishments, and only the ongoinging black magic practices of some of the country's witchdoctors cast a shadow on the shining accomplishments of Botswana's diamond-fueled progress.

Most powerfully of all, it is the love of the land that sings throughout the book. Botswana - stretching from the Kalahari desert to the Limpopo river, a country where � there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own �. A country with its distinct riches - � that was what her country was so rich in - emptiness...those empty spaces, those wide grasslands that broke and broke the heart �. With its thorn trees that know how to survive in the searing heat and the birds and snakes of Mother Africa. Where nature is a family member and where the rising of the sun and its setting at the end of day are events to be savoured in the daily rhythm of life.

I read this book in a relaxed afternoon, and felt I had passed my time with a pleasant companion, who had painted pictures for me of a place I might otherwise never visit.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

5.0 out of 5 stars No 1 in my book, Jun 20 2006

By	Charon W. (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Paperback)

Highly intelligent and pleasantly plump, Precious lived in Gaborone, the capital city of the African nation of Botswana. Her father had left her a nice inheritance. But what would she do with it? Open a detective agency of course. She has no experience or potential clients, but she has "a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter." And don't forget the secretary. Precious, or Mma Ramotswe as she is referred to, uses her hunches and ends up helping people, sometimes with hilarious results. She does, however, also face dangerous situations with boldness. Life handed Precious Ramotswe a few curve balls. She refuses to feel sorry for herself and does what she wants to do with her life, no matter what her culture dictates. The reader will cheer Precious on and find inspiration from this character's no-nonsense methods.

Also recommended: "Katzenjammer" by Jackson McCrae.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 206 customer reviews...

Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars so-so
Light-hearted reading. Very cute, very different cadence to the narrative. Enjoyed it. Not a strong plot, especially if you like page turners. Read more

Published on Oct 14 2004 by Brazerilia Minons

5.0 out of 5 stars INCREDIBLE!!!!
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST CREATIVE NOVELS I'VE EVER READ. I CAN'T IMAGINE WHO WOULDN'T SIMPLY LOVE IT. Read more

Published on Aug 22 2004 by avid reader

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of Africa
As much a loving and beautiful song to Africa as it is a mystery, THE NO.1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY will have to be the best thing you read this summer. Read more

Published on Jul 22 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars Not so much of a detective as a loving description of Africa
After the death of her father Precious Ramotswe uses the inheritance to buy herself a house and an office from which she starts the first detective agency in Botswana. Read more

Published on Jul 20 2004 by Linda Oskam