The Double Comfort Safari Club
Alexander McCall Smith Pantheon Books, 256 pp., $23.95
Fans of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency should be on the lookout for this 11th volume in Smith’s series about Mma Ramotswe and her assistant detective, Mma Makutsi.
Readers who are looking for a good mystery story should steer clear. Hippos and crocodiles on a river trip provide the only lively suspense.
Not a thriller, this is a folksy story about life in a little town in Africa’s Botswana.
The author offers vignettes in the lives of these two women and their acquaintances that allow him to serve up bromides about how to live a good life. Chapter One is titled “You Do Not Change People by Shouting at Them.” Rule No. 32: “Better to lose a fee than to lose a friend.” So he goes, laying out loosely connected situations that play up the wisdom of Mma Ramotswe as she solves problems for the people in her village.
Clearly Smith cherishes the good old days in his beloved Botswana.
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