’I was enchanted by the character of Precious Ramotswe and the sly humour of Alexander McCall Smith’s writing’ Anthony Minghella, Director of The English Patient

’Forget the library - the body is in the mud hut. Superb’Sunday Times

Wayward daughters. Missing husbands. Philandering partners. Curious conmen. If you’ve got a problem, and no one else can help you, then pay a visit to Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s only - and finest - female private detective.

Her methods may not be conventional, and her manner not exactly Miss Marple, but she’s got warmth, wit and canny intuition on her side, not to mention Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, the charming proprietor of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. And Precious is going to need them all as she sets out on the trail of a missing child, a case that tumbles our heroine into a hotbed of strange situations and more than a little danger...

Delightfully different, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency offers a captivating portrait of an exotic world.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Tears of the Giraffe