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The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café
Cover of The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café
The Handsome Man's Deluxe Café
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Borrow Borrow
Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.
Over the years Mma Ramotswe has found many lost things, but never before has she been asked to help a woman find herself—until now. A kindhearted brother and sister have taken in a nameless woman with no memory of her own history or how she came to Botswana. It falls to Precious Ramotswe and her new co-director, Grace Makutsi, to discover the woman's identity. Meanwhile, motherhood proves to be no obstacle to Mma Makutsi’s professional success, as she launches a new enterprise of her own: the Handsome Man's De Luxe Café, a restaurant for Gaborone’s most fashionable diners. And next door, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is forced to make a choice that will directly affect not only Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, but the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as well. With sympathy and indefatigable good humor, Mma Ramotswe and her friends see one another through these major changes and discover along the way what true friendship really means.
Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.
Over the years Mma Ramotswe has found many lost things, but never before has she been asked to help a woman find herself—until now. A kindhearted brother and sister have taken in a nameless woman with no memory of her own history or how she came to Botswana. It falls to Precious Ramotswe and her new co-director, Grace Makutsi, to discover the woman's identity. Meanwhile, motherhood proves to be no obstacle to Mma Makutsi’s professional success, as she launches a new enterprise of her own: the Handsome Man's De Luxe Café, a restaurant for Gaborone’s most fashionable diners. And next door, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is forced to make a choice that will directly affect not only Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, but the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency as well. With sympathy and indefatigable good humor, Mma Ramotswe and her friends see one another through these major changes and discover along the way what true friendship really means.
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Excerpts-
  • Chapter One Chapter One
     
    The Women of Botswana Now Fly Aeroplanes
     
    Precious Ramotswe, creator and owner of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, friend of those who needed help with the problems in their lives, and wife of that great garagiste, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, felt that there were, broadly speaking, two sorts of days. There were days on which nothing of any consequence took place—these were in a clear majority—and then there were those on which rather too much happened. On those uneventful days you might well wish that a bit more would happen; on days when too much occurred, you longed for life to become a bit quieter.
     
    It had always been like that, she thought, and always would be. As her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, often said: there are always too many cattle or too few—never just the right number. As a child she had wondered what he meant by this; now she knew.
     
    Both sorts of day started in much the same way, with the opening of her eyes to the familiar dappled pattern made by the morning sun on the ceiling above her bed, an indistinct dancing of light, faint at first, but gradually becoming stronger. This intrusion of the dawn came from the gap between the curtains—the gap that she always intended to do something about, but did not because there were more pressing domestic tasks and never enough time for everything you had to do. And as long as curtains did their main job, which was to prevent nosy people—unauthorised people, as Mma Makutsi would call them—from looking into her bedroom without her permission, then she did not have to worry too much about their not meeting in the middle.
     
    She woke up at more or less the same time each morning, thought for a while about getting up, and then rose, leaving Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni still deeply asleep on his side of the bed, dreaming about the sort of things that mechanics, and men in general, dream about. Women, she felt, should not enquire too closely as to what these things were, as they were not the sort of things that women liked very much—engines and football, and so on. A friend had once said to her that men did not dream about things like that—that this was just what women wanted men to dream about, while men, in reality, dreamed about things that they would never reveal. Mma Ramotswe doubted this. She had asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni one morning what he had dreamed about and he had replied: “the garage,” and if this were not proof enough, on another occasion, when she had woken him from the tossing and turning of a nightmare, he had replied to her question about the content of the bad dream by saying that it had all been to do with a seized-up gearbox. And then there was Puso, their foster child, who had told her that his dreams were about having a large dog that chased away the bullies at school, or about finding an old aeroplane in the back yard and fixing it so that it could fly, or about scoring a goal for Botswana in a soccer match against Zambia, with the whole stadium rising to its feet and cheering him. That, she thought, settled that. Perhaps there were some men who dreamed about other things, but she felt that this was not the case for most men.
     
    Once up and about, clasping her cup of freshly brewed red bush tea in her hand, she took a walk around the garden, savouring the freshness of the early morning air. Some people said that the air in the morning had no smell; she thought they were wrong, for it smelled of so many things—of the acacia leaves that had been closed for the night and were now...
About the Author-
  • ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH is the author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, the 44 Scotland Street series, and the Corduroy Mansions series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served with many national and international organizations concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland. Visit his website at www.alexandermccallsmith.com.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    August 25, 2014
    As usual, the problems that Precious Ramotswe tackles in Smith enjoyable 15th No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novel (after 2013’s The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon) are more the province of a therapist/counselor than of a cop. Mma Ramotswe’s longtime assistant, Grace Makutsi, now a partner in their detective agency, hopes her good fortune will transfer to a new business venture, a restaurant whose name is the book’s title. In the main plot line, the owner of a Botswana office supplies company retains the detective agency to help ascertain the identity of an amnesiac woman, whose uncertain status puts her at risk for deportation. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe’s husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, must make a difficult business decision, but that only provides his wife with yet another chance to display her sympathy for almost every living creature. Series fans will be moved by a supporting character’s growth, and newcomers will be charmed by the gentle humor. Nine-city author tour. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency.

  • Kirkus

    October 15, 2014
    A slow mystery season in Botswana-there's only one proper case for the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency-leaves its employees free to pursue all manner of adventures on their own.The official case, as so often, involves no obvious crime. When an amnesiac Indian lady carrying no identification wanders into the home of Mr. Sengupta and his widowed sister, "Miss Rose" Chattopadhyay, they naturally take her in but tell Precious Ramotswe that they'd feel better if they knew who their uninvited tenant was and where she'd come from. Putting aside the strategic plan ("The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Challenges Ahead and Options for the Future") furniture salesman Phuti Radiphuti has developed for the agency, Mma Ramotswe (The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, 2013, etc.) is able to put an unexpected operative on the case: Charlie, the chronically underachieving apprentice her husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, has finally let go from Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The episode in which Charlie, rescued from despair by Mma Ramotswe's offer of a job as an apprentice detective, stakes out the Sengupta home in the hope of following his mysterious visitor provides the comic high point of this gentle tale. It's not giving too much away to say that things don't exactly work out as planned for Charlie-or for Mma Ramotswe's partner Grace Makutsi, whose venture into the hospitality business, The Handsome Man's DeLuxe Cafe, runs into sadly predictable problems. If only her husband had drawn up a strategic plan. Thanks to that sturdy deus ex machina, Orphan Farm matron Mma Potokwane, all's well that ends well in perhaps the most tranquil and unruffled entry in this renowned series.

    COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  • Booklist

    Starred review from October 1, 2014
    Calling Precious Ramotswe, owner and chief investigator of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana, a detective doesn't do her justice. Problem solver extraordinaire would be much better. Mma Ramotswe takes on one or two true mysteries per novel, it's true, but she also treats a whole range of human difficulties as they come her way, finding good solutions through her wisdom, kindness, and tact. In this, the fifteenth in McCall Smith's hyperpopular series, the true mystery takes the form of a woman who appears to suffer from amnesia and is in considerable danger. Two other disruptions unsettle Mma Ramotswe's gentle routine of making bush tea in the morning and waiting for clients. Charlie, the girl-crazy, work-loathing apprentice to Mma Ramotswe's husband, who runs the garage adjoining the agency, is let go and quickly sinks into almost suicidal despair. Mma Makutsi, she who prides herself on receiving a 97 at the Botswana Secretarial College and is now Mma Ramotswe's copartner in the business, decides to open a caf' for fashionable people (the Handsome Man title is meant to target that demographic). Humor runs rampant, as always, except in the darkest situations. For example, the pride and prickliness of Mma Makutsi are always a hoot. McCall Smith's depictions of the sights and sounds of Botswana and his overarching theme of compassion make this novel radiant. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series remains the number-one attraction in the prolific McCall Smith's extensive oeuvre, and a new installment is always big news for the author's fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

  • Library Journal

    June 1, 2014

    Mma Ramotswe's next case: bucking up partner Grace Makutsi, who is overwhelmed by business demands and a lightning strike when she decides to try something different and opens the Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe. The 15th installment in a venerable series; with a nine-city tour to Atlanta, Boston, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Aliso Viejo, CA, and Seattle.

    Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Booklist (starred review) "McCall Smith's depictions of the sights and sounds of Botswana and his overarching theme of compassion make this novel radiant . . . Humor runs rampant, as always, except in the darkest situations . . . Calling Precious Ramotswe, owner and chief investigator of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana, a detective doesn't do her justice. 'Problem solver extraordinaire' would be much better. Mma Ramotswe takes on one or two true mysteries per novel, it's true, but she also treats a whole range of human difficulties as they come her way, finding good solutions through her wisdom, kindness, and tact."
  • Publishers Weekly "Enjoyable . . . Series fans will be moved by a supporting character's growth, and newcomers will be charmed by the gentle humor."
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    Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
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No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith
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