This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.” Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency received two Booker Judges’ Special Recommendations and was voted one of the International Books of the Year and the Millennium by the Times Literary Supplement.

“The Miss Marple of Botswana.”
   THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“The author’s prose has the merits of simplicity, euphony and precision. His descriptions leave one as if standing in the Botswana landscape. This is art that conceals art. I haven’t read anything with such unalloyed pleasure for a long time.”
   ANTHONY DANIELS, THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

“The writing [is] very accessible, yet the prose so beautiful.... I choose books that give me pure joy, whose world I want to stay in for a long time.”
   AMY TAN, FOR THE TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

“General audiences will welcome this little gem of a book just as much if not more than mystery readers.”
   PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Smart and sassy...Precious’s progress is charted in passages that have the power to amuse or shock or touch the heart, sometimes all at once.... Thoroughly engaging and entertaining.”
   THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

“One of the best, most charming, honest, hilarious and life-affirming books to appear in years.”
   THE PLAIN DEALER (CLEVELAND)