Blue Shoes and Happiness

Another heart-warming adventure for the sweet-natured Precious Ramotswe and her excellent assistant Mma Makutsi. In this outing the lady detectives have several cases to investigate including blackmail, and medical malpractice. But as ever in this wonderful series, it's the seemingly small and incidental that overtake the ladies, like Mma Ramotswe's musings about Aunty Emang - the popular agony aunt who doles out curt advice, and Mma Makutsi's fear that her 'feminism' has driven a wedge between her and her fiancée. Their inner worlds are so endearing, especially Mma Makutsi's love of new shoes, a passion that gets her into trouble this round. But best of all is the charming Mma Ramotswe - her sense of being in tune with the landscape of Botswana, her insights into human foibles, her salt of the earth common sense, and her brilliant way with tea. x

9/10