A new book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series is always an unbridled treat for me. I love the books and have all of them, and unlike the Harry Potter series which I also love, these are still coming! Set in Botswana and narrated by a female protagonist—the indomitable Mma Ramotswe, who is the proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency—the books capture the feel of Africa and the skin of the character so completely, that it’s hard to believe that they are written by a Scottish man. Alexander McCall Smith was born in Africa in what is now known as Zimbabwe, so he is certainly familiar with the place, but still, it takes exceptional talent to be able to immerse the reader in the character and the setting so completely.

Each book in the series—the first of which was published in 2003—has one or two main cases and a few side cases. Unlike typical detective stories that are usually fast-paced and action-packed, the focus in these books is more on the people and their lives, their relationships with each other, and the sights and sounds of Botswana. The stories unfold at a very leisurely pace, and in most of them, there is no “mystery” as such to be solved, but instead, “problems” to be resolved.

In Precious and Grace, the main case is that of a young Canadian woman who was born and spent her early childhood in Botswana, and after many years of living in Canada and a failed relationship, has come to Botswana to rediscover and reconnect with her roots. She approaches the agency to help with this, and by the end of the book, Mma Ramotswe does manage to dig out her past, including where she grew up and the nanny who looked after her. However, it turns that rediscovering the past is not as fulfilling as she had hoped. In the course of this main investigation, Mma Ramotswe also helps Mr. Polopetsi, an occasional assistant at the agency, to get out of a pyramid scheme he has unwittingly been tricked into. There’s also a stray dog that Fanwell, a junior mechanic at the garage next door, rescued that has become very attached to him—there’s the issue of what to do with him. This many not be a “case” in a traditional detective book, but it is very much in line with the human issues that Mma Ramotswe concerns herself with.

Precious and Grace has the usual cast of lovable characters who have been there since the first book: Mma (Precious) Ramotswe, who set up the agency—which is the only ladies detective agency in Botswana—and lives by a “how-to” book by an American detective, from which she quotes liberally; Mma (Grace) Makutski, her prickly assistant, who has kept promoting herself until she is now the co-director of the agency; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe’s husband and the owner of the garage next door, who knows cars inside out and probably dreams of engines in his sleep; Charlie, a former apprentice in the garage who is now working in the detective agency, and hasn’t gotten very far in life as he is mostly thinking of girls; Fanwell, who, as mentioned earlier, works in the garage under Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and is a little more serious about life than Charlie; and Mma Potokwane, a close friend of Mma Ramotswe who runs an orphan farm and who is famous for serving the best fruit cake to which Mma Ramotswe always helps herself liberally whenever she visits her to talk about her cases and life in general.

Although Precious and Grace is the 17^th book in the series, the quality has not flagged a bit, and it is every bit as enjoyable and entertaining as the first book. And this is true of all the books in the series. Not only do they capture the essence of Botswana so completely that you feel you are living and breathing it, but they are also among the most delightfully funny books I have read, with so many laugh-out-loud moments which I can’t but help reading out to those around me. And the humor is always intelligent, always good-natured, and never crass. For instance, in response to a government official (whom Mma Ramotswe has approached for some information) who complains about the many injustices of being a junior staff member, Mma Ramotswe sympathizes with him and then thinks that this would never happen to Mma Makutski. “If you were Mma Makutski, you simply promoted yourself regularly until you ended up as junior co-director, of whatever her current position was— Mma Ramotswe had rather lost track of Mma Makutski stellar ascent.”

The book is sprinkled with such witticisms throughout. Another constant source of humor is the fact that Mma Ramotswe is “traditionally built” and sees this as a source of pride rather than shame. She has no compunction about indulging in food—whether it is stew, or fat cakes (similar to our doughnuts), or the delicious fruit cake that Mma Potokwane (who is also traditionally built) always seems to have on hand at the orphan farm. Also, when it comes to hiring a new housemother for the orphan farm, of all the qualified applicants, Mma Potokwane makes the final selection in favor of the woman who is traditionally built, because she feels that “the most traditionally built lady would be the happiest, and would therefore make the children happy—they would love her and she would have the most acreage, so to say, for them to climb on, and her lap would be big enough for many children to sit on at the same time.” That’s the most compelling justification of being plump that I’ve ever heard of!

It’s a testament to how enjoyable all the books in No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series are that I’m always sad to reach the end—I wish they would last forever. It’s not a feeling adults have much of anymore, and I am in awe of a writer who can still make us feel this way.

Precious and Grace (Book 17 of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Pantheon
Publication Date: October 2016

Contributor: Lachmi Khemlani runs a technology publication in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Little Bee is a highly acclaimed novel that was published several years ago in 2008, but which I came upon only recently. Going through a dry spell lately with books that are able to engage and sustain my interest, I started Little Bee without much hope and was pleasantly surprised to find that it held my attention throughout, and was, in fact, difficult to put down, especially towards the end. The story is extremely compelling and is told in a simple clear-cut manner without any literary flourishes or pretensions. This is exactly the kind of book I like – where the focus is entirely on the story and the writing is simply a means to tell it rather than an end in itself.

And oh, the author is British, and perhaps I am biased, having grown up with mostly British authors in India, but I feel an easier and more immediate affinity with British authors than with American ones. Many of the books that I have really liked (and written about here) in recent months have been from British authors such as Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train), Clare Mackintosh (I Let You Go), and Fiona Barton (The Widow), not to mention long-standing favorites such as J.K. Rowling and Agatha Christie. I was not surprised to learn that the author of Little Bee, Chris Cleave, had won the Somerset Maugham book award in 2006, given that Somerset Maugham is one of my favorite authors and I love all his books (including The Razor’s Edge, which I recently re-read).

Getting back to Little Bee, the titular character of the novel is a Nigerian refugee girl who escaped from extreme brutality in her country and travelled to London as a stowaway on a cargo ship, was caught and held at a detention center for two years, and then one day is suddenly let out (with a group of other girls, one of whom has bribed a detention officer to let them go). Even though Little Bee — which is the name she takes on after escaping Nigeria — is no longer imprisoned in the center, she is still an illegal immigrant and therefore not free. Not knowing where to go or what to do, she ends up contacting the only people in England that she knows—Sarah and Andrew, a couple that she met on a beach in Nigeria on that fateful day when she and her sister were trying to escape from the men hunting them down. (The turmoil and killings in Nigeria at that time, in the mid to late 2000s, were related to the oil reserves that had just been discovered there and which were being seized by “the oil men,” who got local thugs to eliminate entire villages where the oil was located by killing all the locals en masse.) Little Bee and her sister appeal to Sarah and Andrew to save them from the men, but eventually, only Little Bee is let go, thanks to a spontaneous, courageous act by Sarah — she hacks off one of her fingers in response to the men’s demand that Andrew give them one of his fingers in exchange for the sisters’ lives. Andrew cannot do this, and the men retaliate by assaulting and killing Little Bee’s sister.

This momentary weakness, all the more stark in contrast to his wife’s courage, continues to haunt Andrew and causes further strain in his relationship with Sarah. When contacted by Little Bee two years later after she is set free from the detention center, the past catches up with him and he commits suicide, leaving Sarah to fend for their four year old boy on her own. Then there’s the arrival of Little Bee, whom Sarah takes in. It brings back for her all the horrific memories of that fateful day at the Nigerian beach, yet at the same time, she finds comfort in her presence, not to mention the fact that Little Bee is very good with Sarah’s son. So what ultimately happens with these two women? Is Little Bee found by the authorities and deported back to Nigeria? Or does she continue to stay with Sarah? Is Sarah able to come to terms with Andrew’s suicide, her guilt at the extramarital affair she has been having, and her feelings of inadequacy and helplessness at not being able to help Little Bee beyond saving her life just that one time? What about all those people whom she was not able to help? What about Little Bee’s sister, who was so brutally assaulted and killed shortly after their encounter at that beach? Can Sarah do something now, or will she continue to be haunted, just like Andrew was?

While I don’t want to give away the ending, I have to say that the book had a very satisfying conclusion – very realistic and believable without being overtly mushy or unbearably depressing. In addition to just telling a story, it makes a very strong statement about refugees, political asylum, detention centers, the contrast between the first world and developing countries, and what even ordinary individuals like us can do. In the current world scenario with the growing refugee crisis, I found the book remarkably prescient. It manages to be tragic and uplifting at the same time, which is quite an achievement.

Little Bee
Author: Chris Cleave
Publisher and Date: Originally published as The Other Hand by Sceptre in August 2008; Reprint edition published by Simon & Schuster in February 2010

Contributor: Lachmi Khemlani runs a technology publication in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I have always loved to read fiction, but I have been going through a drought lately when it comes to finding something to read that holds my attention and makes me care about the characters, that makes me lose myself in a book as I always did since I was a kid. Over the holidays, I tried reading several critically acclaimed books that had recently been published including the Booker-prize winning The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Swing Time by Zadie Smith, and Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer; but I found that I couldn’t care enough about the plot and the characters to stick with them beyond the first chapter. Then, on a trip to New York City, I visited its famous Strand bookstore where, in the course of browsing through the thousands of books it carries, I came across Christopher Isherwood’s The World in the Evening. I have been a fan of  Isherwood’s writing ever since I read his A Meeting by the River several years ago, which I still rate as one of the best books I have ever read. Isherwood was a contemporary of Aldous Huxley and Gerald Heard, and is best known for his The Berlin Stories book, which was adapted into the hit movie, Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli, as well as for his book, A Single Man, which was also made into a movie starring Colin Firth. Thus, when I came across The World in the Evening, I picked it up immediately, hoping it would bring back some of the enjoyment of fiction that I have always had until now.

I found this true for The World in the Evening, for the most part. Set around the time of the Second World War, the book is centered around the experiences of a young man, Stephen, in his early thirties, including his first marriage when he was in his twenties to a woman who was twelve years older than him, his brief affair with a young man while he was still married to his first wife, and his second marriage (after his first wife dies) to a young, carefree, rather hedonistic woman, which ends disastrously after he finds out that she is having an affair and walks out on her. Most of the book is in the form of reminiscences he has when he is holed up in bed for several weeks after being hit by a truck when visiting his childhood home in rural Pennsylvania, where he comes after walking out on his second wife. He has extended conversations with the people looking after him, which include his adopted aunt who has been like a mother to him (his own died when he was very young); a war refugee from Germany his aunt has taken in, who is uncertain about the fate of her husband as a war captor; and his doctor, who is homosexual and lives with a man whom the conservative community they belong to is determined to view as just a “roommate.” In the course of his conversations with these people, his perusal of his first wife’s letters – she was a famous author – a collection of which he might publish, and the memories triggered by them, we come to know the details of his life, the ups and downs he has gone through, his own feelings about them, and what has motivated him to do what he has done.

What struck me most about this book was how self-introspective it was —Stephen lays bare all his bad behavior, his petty jealousies, his irrational rages, and his many contradictory feelings for us to see. Ultimately, he comes to perceive everything bad that has happened to him as his own fault, caused by how he thinks and acts rather than by bad things happening to him. It is refreshing to come across a story in which the protagonist realizes that it is their own attitude and behavior that is primarily responsible for the trials and tribulations they are experiencing in life. It is also how eventually Stephen is able to resolve his problems, put his demons to rest, and find some measure of peace and acceptance in his life. It seems to be an important lesson for all of us.

Also, given that the book was written in the early 50s, I was amazed by how frank it was about sex and sexuality, both straight and gay. The main character was, for all practical purposes, heterosexual but still has a homosexual fling, showing that the divide between homosexuals and heterosexuals may not as rigid as is commonly believed. In the present day, we would call Stephen’s character bisexual, but at the time the book was written, there was no such concept, and Stephen is not at all conflicted about his fling with a man, despite being clearly attracted to, and married to, women. In fact, the only guilt he feels is in the fact that he is cheating on his wife. The fact that it is with a man is almost inconsequential to him.

The World in the Evening is a great example of the kind of book I like —where the focus is simply on telling the story without resorting to linguistic tricks or stylistic cadences. There are no examples of “beautiful writing” to showcase here. It was a little long-winded at times and did not come anywhere close to the brilliance of A Meeting by the River, but it was eminently readable, engaging and held my attention throughout.

The World in the Evening
Author: Christopher Isherwood
Publication Date: First published 1954 by Methuen Publishing Ltd; Reprint edition published in November 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG Classics)

Contributor: Lachmi Khemlani runs a technology publication in the San Francisco Bay Area.