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| Morality for Beautiful Girls (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 3) | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander Mccall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $12.94 (100%)
New (127) Used (345) Collectible (6) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 12078
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 227
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 4.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 1400031362
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781400031368
ASIN: 1400031362
Publication Date: November 12, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: With pride from Motor City. All books guaranteed. Best Service, best prices.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great book January 11, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a lovely, lyrical series, gently set in an Africa we never hear about. No violence, no overt sex, delightful people.
Fun read January 5, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoy this series of books - the writing is picturesque. I find myself comfortably transported into a world that I know nothing about. No serious issues in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series - just fun, light reading.
 Nothing unexpected in this pleasant third installment December 6, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you've read the previous books in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, then you know what you have coming: Mma Ramotswe, a kindly version of Dr. Phil solving mysteries in Botswana, goes about her business. She helps a government man ascertain whether his brother's wife is trying to poison his brother; her assistant, Mma Kutsi, helps a beauty pageant figure out which candidates would be most worthy representatives of Botswana; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni battles clinical depression; and so on.
This entry in the series is, for the most part, as pleasant as the others, although I found myself growing weary at times. Smith spends a less time on mystery here and more on Mma Ramotswe's personal life. Smith conveys the national pride of Botswana well. At least one of the subplots (that of the beauty pageant) was resolved rather weakly, and another subplot (involving a little boy found out in the wilderness) seemed completely peripheral.
Because I've done some work in East Africa (far from Botswana), friends often ask me how accurate Smith's portrayal is. My principal answer is that Africa (with it's many different countries) is very heterogeneous, so I don't know. That piqued my interest, though, as to how the novels have been received in Botswana: after some poking I was only able to find two relevant sources, both positive*: (1) a University of Botswana history professor recommends the novels as a "deeply sympathetic (and very funny) view of present-day Botswana"; and (2) the head of Botswana's tourism association. So at least you may rest assured that the books aren't seen as a complete misrepresentation.
I listened to the unabridged audio recording narrated by Lisette Lecat (published by Recorded Books). As always, Lecat does an excellent job. If you enjoy her narration, I strongly recommend her performance of Alexandra Fuller's excellent memoir of growing up in Zimbabwe, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (also published by Recorded Books).
* I found both of these sources cited in Elfi Bettinger's essay, "Riddles in the Sand of the Kalahari," in the book Postcolonial Postmortems (ed. Christine Matzke), p. 162. I then verified both sources myself.
A Beauty Queen and a Wild Child November 3, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mma Precious Ramotswe is back in the third installment of this wonderful series about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency near Gaborone, Botswana. Having expanded her family in the first book to include Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, her fiance, and in the second book to include two orphan children, Mma Ramotswe must now look to her business, which is doing well, but not so well as all that. She has promoted her secretary to assistant detective and given her a raise, but there is not enough money coming into the detective agency to keep it in the black.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is having business problems of his own. His perpetually lazy assistants seem to get nothing done, and suddenly, Rra Matekoni himself seems to lose all interest in his garage. Mma Ramotswe is distressed, and seeks professional help from the highest caliber of people she can think of.
Meanwhile, an important new client comes to the agency. He is a Government Man, very rich and very powerful. Convinced that his brother's wife is poisoning him, the Government Man hires Mma Ramotswe to investigate, and she turns up astonishing results. While shis is off on this important case, her assistant detective, who has suddenly found herself as Acting Manager of the garage, too, is required to determine the character of certrain beauty queens, to see if any of them is morally fit to win the pageant and go on to compete for Miss Botswana, and maybe Miss Universe.
But most mysterious of all is the small child who smells of lions and is found wild in the bush, unable to communicate with anyone. Naturally he ends up at the orphanage. But what can be done about his bewildering lack of communication with other human beings?
Once again Alexander McCall Smith has captured the cadence and the simpliticy of Africa, its beauty and its complexity. This is a truly delightful book.
A VERY PLEASANT VISIT October 30, 2006
The cover blurb claims that this book presents the Miss Marple of Botswana. This is not exactly true. The detective work is clever and entertaining, but fairly simple. One does not read books of this series for the brilliant detective work, but to enjoy meeting the amiable characters and to get a sense of life in Africa. Having once lived in Africa for several years, the book made me feel quite nostalgic.
(Peter Payne, author of CAPTAIN CALIFORNIA BATTLES THE BEELZEBUBIAN BEASTS OF THE BIBLE)
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