Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) - Hardcover

The 10th! instalment in this infinitely enjoyable series finds the ever-charming, ever-resourceful Mma Ramostwe helping people, and vans, with problems in their lives.

Mma Ramotswe’s tiny white van has developed a disturbing noise. But having made numerous repairs to the van over the years, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni – her estimable husband and mechanic nonpareil – sells it without telling her and presents her with a new, characterless vehicle. So Mma Ramotswe sets out to recover the van. . . .

In the meantime, the thoroughly unpleasant, yet glamorous, Violet Sephotho (who earned 50 percent, at most!, in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College) gets herself a job at the Double Comfort Furniture Store. Why? The reason is obvious: to make a play for Mma Makutsi’s fiancé, Mr Phuti Radiphuti.

And a proprietor of a local football team has enlisted the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency to help explain their dreadful losing streak: surely someone is fixing the games – it can’t just be a case of unskilled players . . . This is a job for Charlie, ever-apprentice at the Speedy Motors, to sniff out the competence of the players, as an assistant detective. . . .

Alexander McCall Smith is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.