by Alexander McCall Smith, 2011
12th book in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency
Wonderful, wonderful book! Mma Ramotswe solves the mystery of the cattle maulings – not really – but everyone else is satisfied; the kind neighbor who just wants to be friends buys the unkind Mr. Botsalo Moeti salt lick and offers to fix the fences. The maid and her dwarf-teacher lover say it will never happen again, and so does her little son. It is an example of how an unkind, evil person can bring trouble on himself.
Mma Grace Makutsi buys new shoes for her wedding and decides to wear them out of the store. Then she sees Mma Ramotswe’s little white van and as she is running after it, she breaks the heels and an ankle strap. She is too afraid to tell Phuti.
Charlie supposedly got a girl pregnant and she had twins. Grace berates him for not taking care of her. Charlie runs away. Mma Ramotswe finds out where he is (at Fanwell’s) and invites him over for a talk at her house. She agrees to talk to the girl and Mma Makutsi. When she talks to the girl, she finds out Charlie is not the father–She had 2 boyfriends at the same time and is going to marry the father. When Mma Ramotswe tells Charlie, he is so happy! He tells Mma Ramotswe, “I am going to be different from now on…” She says, “Don’t change too much…We like you the way you are, Charlie.” He stared at her incredulously and she realized that he might not have heard many people say that. So she repeated herself: “We like you, Charlie; you just remember that.”
And Charlie and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni go and buy back the tiny white van and surprise Mma Ramotswe with it early one morning–it is in her driveway.
When she drives to work in it, she cries and has to pull over, “her triumphal journey, her proud return.”
Finally, in the last chapter, Grace and Phuti get married. A beautiful wedding. Mrs. Potokwane arranges to get invited by offering to help with the food – “never enough pots” and the cakes – never enough cakes. And she takes over and Grace is so happy. Charlie tries to fix Grace’s shoes and apologizes for calling her a warthog. Mma Ramotswe buys her a new pair of shoes and Grace explains what happened, finally, to Phuti and, “He had not minded in the least.”
Beautiful, interesting, sweet, wonderful story! He just gets better and better. My doctor visit to Dr. Stephanie Lockwood (for penicillin for gross cough) – I brought the book with and she said, “Is that the new #1…?” and I said, “yes – it’s great.” She said, “I have it on hold at the library!” and I told her, “so did I!” When we were finished she said , “Now, hurry up and finish that book so I can read it!”
But Mom gets it first.