The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

I don’t know how these books can be so good-hearted without being sappy, but they are. Maybe it’s because the characters’ quirks and failings are so common to us all, and their self-awareness is as dim and intermittent as our own. In this volume, characters that have gotten short shrift in previous installments are brought back into the story line. The result is that the main characters become more complex and whole, as well. As always, the pace at which the story unfolds requires the reader to go into a kind of meditative state suitable to the setting, which is not a bad thing at all.

I often read this series when I need a break. I read them as kind of meditation because, of course the stories themselves are interesting and pleasant journeys into both a strange and common humanity, but words and phrases can be savored for their beauty. Im not sure if its because it has a translated feel, like a hint of foreign dialect, but it just seems like I can hear that musical cadence of Botswana. I dont get this feeling from the other series by this author and I dont like them very well because of that. Comparatively they seem smug to me. I cant like the characters or the prose. But the stories of Botswana are very dear to me and I keep them close at hand for troublesome days.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is indeed a good husband and has an equally good wife in Mma Ramotswe. Peopled with characters we all know – the reckless youth, the haughty matron, the earnest worker, the bashful boyfriend – the story has sufficient plots to keep you engaged and the sheer goodness that permeates their world is sufficient to restore your faith in happy endings.

Fiction has the ability to transport a reader into the world of the author’s choosing. The best fiction enhances the reader’s ability to deal with reality. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, of which this volume is the eighth installment, brings the reader to Botswana–an African nation struggling to maintain its identity as it adopts modern ways–and shows the power to be had in moral living, in trying to do good and be good. No reader can or will regret time spent in Mma Ramotswe’s world.

The author’s love of Africa pervades his stories. His characters are good people who deal with their circumstances and foibles in an honest and forthright manner so lacking in more “modern” cultures and settings. Africa seems to have retained habits of polite respect, habits now rarely found in this Californian’s world. By this eighth volume we have come to know and respect Mma Ramotswe as a person with a singular gift of insight. By now we have seen her deal with numerous difficulties and the author is concentrating on her husband Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni who must deal with a mid-life crisis, her friend Grace Makutsi who must adapt to success, Charlie the Apprentice who is apt to make a mess of things as well as the typical clientele of the Agency; problems are solved.

The genius of Mr. Smith’s series is the pacing. There are no hurries. He takes the time to explore his characters’ feelings and reactions to life and does so in an engaging, surprisingly readable manner. In a very telling scene, though there may be dangerous crocodiles in the water, Mr. Smith demonstrates that Mma Ramotswe can still, though wary, appreciate the beauty of her wild country. Likewise, though our world is inhabited by crocodiles of a different sort, we learn that happiness can still be found and enjoyed despite all difficulties.

There is an unequalled depth to these characters and their stories are mixed with wry commentary on the human condition that is alone worth the price of the book–there is wisdom in these stories that far exceeds most of the drivel masquerading as literature. Marriage is sanctified, virtue is rewarded, mercy is extended and rewarded; Mr. Smith convincingly portrays the conditions precedent to happiness and true satisfaction with life. His stories give hope.

I prescribe all eight volumes for anyone who is weary of the world in which we live. These books demonstrate that a gentle, peaceful life can still be had amongst the crocodiles.

It is often said, “What goes around, comes around.” Or perhaps more succinctly and more personally, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In this book, the 8th book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Series, McCall Smith concentrates on Work Ethics on the job. Many interesting events take place in this volume for followers of the series. We have two resignations, Mma Makutsi and Rra Charlie, the older mechanic apprentice; each for their own reasons. And, each returns for totally different reasons.

Both are welcomed back, despite the terms of their resignations. Each of these allowances for their returns are deeply embedded in the high ethical positions of both Mma Ramotswe and Rra J.L.B. Matekoni. Both run the most highly ethical types of lives and these high ethics extend also to their work and how they treat people in their work and outside their work. Ethics in work is perhaps even more important than ethics in the rest of life, as at work, there is a job to keep secure and a salary to earn that supports families, children, and spouses; if not others.

Perhaps the most interesting of all the ethical questions tackled by McCall Smith in this book is that of Medical Ethics. There is a case that comes into the Agency, involving the mysterious death of three people, who died in the same bed at the same time; each occurrence happening on a Friday. Surely this could be a coincidence, but the odds of such a coincidence must be astronomical.

It is Mma Ramotswe’s job to investigate and evaluate whether there is something or someone responsible for these mysterious deaths, or whether the unusually odd statistical probability is just that, a coincidence. With her usual style, Mma investigates this situation with the assistance of her unusually acute sense of awareness. She looks for something different, particularly at that time on Fridays. She does in fact find just such a difference. It turns out, that the Assistant Administrator is aware of this situation, but he had been the one to call in Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

That decision was one of ethics. Despite the Administrator’s awareness of the reason, he wanted an outside agent to write a report indicating that there was nothing amiss in these deaths. When it turns out, that the one responsible for the mysterious occurrence is not aware whatsoever of what she had caused, it was left to Mma Ramotswe to decide what would be the ethical thing to do. All those who lost their lives had been old, with no dependent relatives and they had been very, very sick. Mma decides that the protection of the inadvertent perpetrator’s sense of ethical propriety is the most ethically correct position to take. She therefore agrees with the Administrator to indicate that there is nothing unusual about the incident and to let it end right there.

This volume is particularly fine in the series. By this the eighth book in the series, there is considerable character development and readers of all 8 books understand and know the ways of the characters that appear in the series. Because of this situation, McCall Smith is able to play on their past behaviors to work out some very tricky and sticky Work Ethics problems and considerations. The book is recommended to all readers interested in ethical behavior and all readers of McCall Smith books who want to read perhaps the very best of the series since the first book.

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