Alexander McCall Smith | The Miracle at Speedy Motors (Anchor)
Written by Sarah Boslaugh
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
McCall Smith explores the web of human relations with particular focus on the question of
what is truth, and whether honesty is always the best policy.
In the ninth volume of his No. 1
Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith uses several stories to
explore the web of human relations with particular focus on the question of
what is truth, and whether honesty is always the best policy.
One involves a series of
threatening letters delivered to detective Precious Ramotswe, which causes her
to suspect a trusted associate. Another involves a woman who comes to the
agency hoping to learn about her past and locate some of her relatives. Then
there is the story of Motholeli, foster child of Mma Ramotswe and her husband
Mr. J.L. B. Matekoni: Can a doctor in Johannesburg
really cure her paralysis, or is he raising false hopes so he can collect a
consulting fee? Finally, there is the story of Mma Makutsi, her fiancé Mr.
Phuti Radiphuti and their marriage bed.
The particular stories are
almost beside the point, however; the novels are like pieces cut from one long
bolt of cloth which represents the fictional Botswana
created by Mr. McCall Smith. The characters are like old friends by now; you
can be sure Mma Maketoni will continue to go on about her 97 percent exam
results, Mma Ramotswe will continue to promote red bush tea as good for what
ails you (grocery stores in London now carry it, thanks to the popularity of
these novels), and Mma Potokwani will continue to send fruitcakes to Rra
Maketoni, who will continue to repair the orphanage's mechanical equipment for
free.
Some critics have dubbed
Precious Ramotswe the Miss Marple of Botswana,
but it's more accurate to instead call Mr. McCall Smith the Agatha Christie of
that country, not in terms of the complexities of his plots (there aren't any),
but because he has created a popular detective series set in a cozy and orderly
universe not entirely unlike the England in which Miss Christie set many of her
novels. His Botswana
is a land where old-fashioned virtues such as loyalty, hard work, respect and
community are the prevailing values, and in which threats to the social order can
be efficiently identified and disposed of. At the end of every novel you can be
sure that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world, making Mr. McCall
Smith's Botswana
a very comforting place to spend a few hours. As Mma Ramotswe says to a
security guard, there are no bank robbers in Botswana
because if someone tried to rob a bank, "you'd probably know exactly who they
were. You could simply threaten to tell their mothers." | Sarah Boslaugh
McCall Smith explores the web of human relations with particular focus on the question of
what is truth, and whether honesty is always the best policy.
