The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (15)

“There was also enough light, Mma Ramotswe reflected, to see that the world was not always a place of pain and loss, but a place where our simple human affairs – those matters that for all their pettiness still sometimes confounded us – were not insoluble, were not without the possibility of resolution.”

The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café is the fifteenth book in the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Scottish author, Alexander McCall Smith. Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi are faced with a puzzling case: Mr Senagupta, proprietor of Senagupta Office Supplies, and his sister, Miss Rose, want the Ladies to discover the identity of a woman who has arrived at their house with no idea of who she is, or where she’s from. But Mma Ramostwe suspects there is more to this case than just amnesia.

Grace is about to embark on a new challenge. Already a wife to Phuti Radiphuti, and mother to Itumelang Clovis Radiphuti, and a partner in the Detective Agency, she now has a lease on the shop that is to become the Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. But while Grace extends, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni has to downsize, and Charlie, still without any qualifications, becomes the unfortunate casualty.

This instalment sees the tiny white van getting dented (twice!), Mma Ramotswe selling cattle for a good cause; Mma Potokwani solving two tricky problems, Mma Makutsi failing to follow the advice of her shoes, Violet Sepotho living up to her nasty reputation, Mma Ramotswe reminded of her first marriage, Charlie embarking on a seemingly unlikely career, Mma Makutsi helping to advance the career of a smart young girl and the formation of an unexpected partnership.

As always, McCall Smith includes plenty of gentle philosophy as his characters muse on waiting-room magazines, what men dream, Prince Charles, female intuition and Pilates. Plans are thought about: “The trouble with plans was that they tended to be expressions of hope…for most people the plan merely said what they would like to happen rather than what they would actually do”, as are dreams: “no matter how unhappy or fraught our waking world may be, we are sent dreams in which we can do the things our heart really wants us to do”

The late Obed Ramotswe’s wisdom about disputes is remembered: “When you don’t talk about something, then something will talk about itself for you” and Mma Ramotswe thinks about behaviour: “You cannot judge somebody of eighteen by the standards of somebody of thirty, even less by the standards of somebody who was forty”. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni pontificates on progress: “I am not modern, and there are many people who are not modern. We want to stay exactly where we are, because there is nothing wrong with that place” and thinks about traffic: “How much worse was it in other countries not too far away where people drove as if they were being pursued by a swarm of bees”

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments (the Café menu is a case in point), as well as thought-provoking situations, heart-warming reactions and a satisfying conclusion. Another excellent dose of Precious Ramotswe and co.