The Miracle at Speedy Motors: The New Novel in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series (Hardcover)

by Alexander McCall Smith (Author)
Key Phrases: detective agency, tiny white van, orphan farm, Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, Mma Sebina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's foremost solver of problems, is used to handling mostly straightforward domestic cases, which makes a series of anonymous letters threatening her and her prickly assistant, Grace Makutsi, all the more disturbing in Smith's triumphant ninth No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel (after The Good Husband of Zebra Drive). The search for whoever penned the letters coincides with a new commission: Manka Sebina, whose birth parents gave her up as a child, hires the agency to track down any living relatives. Both problems afford Mma Ramotswe ample opportunity to display her winning blend of insight into others' motivations and an endearingly naïve belief in the best in human nature. Significant, if incremental, developments in the lives of the community Smith has lovingly created over the course of the series will intrigue old fans. Immediately accessible to newcomers, this entry will prompt them to seek out the earlier books. (Apr.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* The ninth installment in McCall Smith’s beloved No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series finds Botswanan Precious Ramotswe musing upon more mysteries of life. There’s the woman desperately searching for her family, with not a clue where to start. She claims that her late mother is not her birth mother, but Mma Ramotswe isn’t so sure. Associate detective Grace Makutsi (whom readers will remember for her large spectacles and stellar 97 percent score on the Botswana Secretarial College exam) is restless over damage to a new bed purchased by her fiancé, Phuti Radiphuti. (She and the well-mannered Mr. Radiphuti had been unable to resist that heart-shaped velvet headboard.) Mma Ramotswe also receives some threatening letters, which seem to have come from a most unlikely source. Finally, Mma Ramotswe’s husband, talented car mechanic and model citizen Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, meets a doctor who just may have a cure for adopted daughter Motholeli’s spinal condition. (Other experts have told the young girl she’d be wheelchair-bound for life.) While hope springs eternal, Mma Ramotswe doesn’t share the unabashed optimism of her spouse. Scotsman McCall Smith, who also pens the Isabel Dalhousie, 44 Scotland Street, and Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, conveys his deep admiration for Botswana (where he once lived and helped establish a school of law at the university) on every page of this warm, wise, whimsical novel. --Allison Block

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375424482
• ISBN-13: 978-0375424489
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #60,090 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 9 in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Light and enjoyable, but not the best of the novels, April 15, 2008

By	A. Woodley "Patroness, Janeites, the Austen list" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Precoius Ramotswe is back, and Alexander McCall Smith has written another good installment in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency.

While it isn't the best in the series that I have read, it still has a number of the features which I think makes this series so compelling. The complex relationships, the gentle humour, the rather small issues that the Number One detective Agency has to solve, but they are all set against larger themes such as traditional life in Botswana and other broader issues of life in an Africa Country.

There are a number of things for Mma Ramotswe to solve. Her paid case in this installment is to find a woman's family. She does not know who they are or even if they are, she is just sure she was adopted and wants to find out if she has any family. However - first and foremost are the nasty letters which the agency is receiving, threatening and personal. Then there is her adopted daughter who is in a wheelchair. Mr J L B Matekoni has met a doctor who says he can heal her and is determined to try no matter what the cost.

Mma Makutsi's wedding date has not been set, and she is privately worried. It is affecting her work and when she takes a morning off, distracted, Mma Ramotswe is forced to wonder just what will happen when Mma Makutsi gets married...will she leave the agency? will she demand to be made more than associate detective?

Luckily, or unluckily Mma Makutsi has a disaster with a piece of furniture and her reliance on Mma Ramotswe is confirmed!

All these 'disasters' are affecting life at the Number one ladies detective agency, especially when it seems that one of their own may be perpetrating the nasty letters. Luckily it is the Apprentice Charlie who saves the day discovering the culprit which results in a hilarious chase through the local supermarket.

This series really is wonderful. The small things in life, such as rain, cattle, new shoes, furniture, a filing cabinet which is locked - they fill the integral plot keys to a larger life.

While this novel was warm and friendly, I just enjoyed others more. However I would still highly recommend this book. My favourite so far, I think, was the Kalahari Typing School for Men - but they are really all wonderful reading!

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Some of our [country has vanished], maybe. But not the heart that beats right inside...That is still there.", March 16, 2008

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

In this ninth novel in the Alexander McCall Smith series, Precious Ramotswe, the "traditionally built" proprietor of the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana, receives a threatening letter: "Fat lady: you watch out! And you too, the one with the big glasses." Mma Ramotswe and her assistant, Grace Makutsi, of the big glasses, are startled by this letter, and Mma Ramotswe even begins to believe that she is being followed. As the two women deal with their business and their lives, the letter haunts them--it is so uncharacteristic of the gentle, sweet-spirited life of Botswana, a place where, in Mma Ramotswe's experience, almost any problem can be worked out over a cup of bush tea.

Continuing the stories of Mma Ramotswe and those around her, this novel, like its predecessors, contains a mystery or two, along with many episodes of daily life which develop the characters further, quietly teach a few lessons, and show how humor and polite behavior can improve even the worst of situations. The central mystery of the novel is uncomplicated. A woman has come to Mma Ramotswe because she believes that she is not the daughter of her late "mother," and she wants Mma Ramotswe to find her birth family.

Subplots galore keep the stories flowing. The fuss-budget-y Grace Makutsi, who is engaged to marry a wealthy furniture seller, picks out an elaborate bed which she and her husband will occupy after they are married. When she has it delivered to her house, the bed precipitates a disaster. At the same time, Mma Ramotswe begins to suspect that one of the employees of Speedy Motors, the auto repair shop run by her honest and honorable husband, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, is the author of the threatening letter. When Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni meets a doctor who convinces him that their wheelchair-bound daughter Motholeli might be able to walk again, he will to stop at nothing--not even the doctor's enormous fee--to help her.

More a series of short episodes in the life of Mma Ramotswe than a mystery in the traditional sense, the novel creates a warm, feel-good atmosphere which provides a respite from the insistent realism of other contemporary detective stories, and ultimately, the "miracle" of Speedy Motors becomes obvious. Escape reading of the highest order, the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series features characters who feel familiar, make us love them, and inspire us to obey our best instincts. (5 stars for character, 3 for plot) n Mary Whipple

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency)
The Full Cupboard of Life (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 5)
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency)
Blue Shoes and Happiness (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 7)

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As brilliant as ever - read this book, April 17, 2008

By	C. Catherwood "writer" (Cambridge UK and Richmond VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is as brilliant a book as ever in the series, and shows a writer very much still at the height of his creative powers. While some might think one overarching mystery might be important, I think that that misses the point of a novel like this - the wonderful pace. As a leading London lawyer told me, the great things about these novels is that they are SLOW: the pace is leisurely and they induce a wonderful sense of calm in the reader. This is why they are so popular and it is what makes them so readable - all that, of course, as well as the superb sense of place you get in these novels, their magnificent evocation of the African atmosphere from someone who was born and raised in the area and the totally brilliant sense of characterisation that makes them so real.

It is a shame that people tend only to read one of the many McCall Smith series. You can tell what a wonderful evocation of character he has by, for example, comparing his characterisation in both these novels and in his 44 Scotland Street series, where all the characters are equally well drawn. (One can do the same with others: for example the Isabel Dalhousie series and those of the Portuguese Irregular Verbs). The over-ambitious mother Isabel in 44 Scotland Street and Mma Makutsi in this novel: both are magnificent portrayals of highly memorable characters and show that McCall Smith is one of the true great writers of our time.

So buy this book, give it to all your friends and then buy at least one of the other series as well: you don't have to be in Botswana to enjoy this series, for example, and you don't have to be in Edinburgh to enjoy some of his others.

Christopher Catherwood (author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ and joint author of THE MERCHANTS OF FEAR).