Our impressions of Africa have been informed for many years by the mysterious jungle seething with evil depicted verbally in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and visually in numerous Hollywood films. As Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe lamented in an influential lecture first presented in 1975, such representations have created an image of Africa that emphasizes savagery, chaos, and violence. News stories about the catastrophic spread of AIDS, endless civil wars, and decades-long droughts afflicting the continent only add to a common perception of Africa as a dark inferno.

Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling series, the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, paints an alternative picture that celebrates the rich variety of African life, even in the midst of poverty and trouble. In the founding novel, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, we meet Precious Ramotswe (pronounced Ram-ot-swáy), who establishes the first detective agency in Botswana with the proceeds from the sale of a herd of cattle left by her beloved Daddy at his death. Mma Ramotswe, as she is properly addressed, uses this conventional African dowry to establish herself as an unconventional modern professional. She is repeatedly described as being "traditionally built" (in other words, she's a large woman), but Mma Ramotswe is actually an exemplar of the new urban African, a far cry from Conrad's incomprehensible savage.

When an officious lawyer questions whether a woman can be a detective, the decidedly feminist Mma Ramotswe thinks, in an aside typical of the gentle humor pervading the series, "how dare he say that about women, when he didn't even know that his zip was half undone! Should she tell him?" She retorts, "Women are the ones who know what's going on. … They are the ones with eyes. Have you not heard of Agatha Christie?" Indeed, Mma Ramotswe has the eyes, ears, and heart to help people solve their problems. Ably assisted by her competent secretary, Mma Makutsi (who earned an unprecedented 97 percent average at the Botswana College of Secretarial and Office Skills, and a reserved but kind automobile mechanic with the imposing name of Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni,1 Mma Ramotswe pursues her cases, fueled by numerous cups of strong bush tea.

The New York Times Book Review dubbed Mma Ramotswe "the Miss Marple of Botswana," and her ability to listen sympathetically to her clients' problems is reminiscent of Christie's deceptively demure detective. Like Miss Marple, Mma Ramotswe draws on her knowledge of human nature and social norms to solve her cases. One of the charms of the traditional British "cozy" mystery, at least for me, is the chance to immerse myself in the domestic details of a new society. I confess to longing for an invitation to the vicar's for afternoon sherry or to attend a garden fete with eccentric British villagers. McCall Smith's mysteries work in a similar fashion, bringing us into a tightly knit community with strong social bonds and carefully articulated manners and morals.

Mma Ramotswe has considerably more chutzpah than Miss Marple, however, as she impersonates a nurse, confronts a witch doctor, approaches strange men in bars, and tracks down a crocodile. And in contrast to the classic mystery story, these books do not revolve around a single meticulously plotted murder; in fact, few of Mma Ramotswe's cases involve death. Instead, she helps her clients solve problems that are most frequently associated with restoring family unity-straying husbands, rebellious teenagers, disputed fathers, disappearing sons, questionable suitors.

The cases are lazily interspersed throughout the course of each book (a typical book includes three or four), but the primary narrative, such as it is, concerns Mma Ramotswe herself. The first book tells of her happy childhood with Daddy, her ill-advised and short-lived marriage to an abusive musician, and her blissful but brief experience as a mother. In the conclusion, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni proposes, and she accepts, after having initially turned him down, but throughout the next several installments, their marriage is repeatedly delayed. First, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, overcome by the pushy Mma Potokwane, the matron of the Orphan Farm, adopts two orphans without informing his fiancée (Tears of the Giraffe), and then he suffers a serious bout of depression (Morality for Beautiful Girls). The wedding is still on hold in The Kalahari Typing School for Men, during which Mma Makutsi branches out into a new business. In the fifth and latest book, The Full Cupboard of Life, Mma Potokwane is at it again-browbeating Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni into undertaking a parachute jump to benefit the Orphan Farm-while the wedding date still has not been set.

These meandering tales reflect the relaxed rhythm of Botswanan life. In the first book, McCall Smith writes that Mma Ramotswe is "a good detective, and a good woman … in a good country," and this conjunction is significant. The stories unfold against the backdrop of contemporary Botswana, a peaceful, politically stable country with far fewer social problems than its African neighbors, despite poverty and the shadow of AIDS. Mma Ramotswe is a true patriot, as much in love with her country as with the memory of her revered Daddy and the presence of her kindly mechanic. She celebrates and epitomizes the natural beauty of the land, the life-affirming sense of community, and the traditional morality of the Botswanan people. The conclusion of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency beautifully reflects this symbolic conjunction:

The sun went, and it was dark. [Mr. J.L. B Matekoni] sat beside her in the comfortable darkness and they listened, contentedly, to the sounds of Africa settling down for the night. A dog barked somewhere; a car engine raced and then died away; there was a touch of wind, warm dusty wind, redolent of thorn trees.

He looked at her in the darkness, at this woman who was everything to him-mother, Africa, wisdom, understanding, good things to eat, pumpkins, chicken, the smell of sweet cattle breath, the white sky across the endless, endless bush, and the giraffe that cried, giving its tears for women to daub on their baskets; O Botswana, my country, my place.

The trope of "Mother Africa" has a long history in African literature, beginning with Leopold Senghor's poem "Femme Noire," and we might be tempted to associate Mma Ramotswe with the image of the black woman as an earth goddess: warm, sensuous, nurturing, fertile. Some African women writers, such as Buchi Emechetu, have taken exception to this stereotype. Is McCall Smith succumbing to the same essentialized image? I don't think so. Originating in the Negritude movement of the 1950s and '60s, the Mother Africa trope idealizes precolonial life, often in strongly sexual terms. Mma Ramotswe is a modern, or we might even say postmodern, African woman. Strongly independent, she runs a detective agency and drives her own (albeit decrepit) white van. With deep respect for democracy, education, religion, and good manners, she represents a new Africa that is virtuous, resilient, and hopeful.

Also refreshingly different is the depiction of religious belief as part of the normal operations of Botswanan life. Representatives from both the Dutch Reformed Church and the Anglican Church make appearances, and in The Kalahari Typing School for Men, one of the apprentices becomes religious, joining an indigenous African church. Characters often reflect on God and God's actions in the world. The satisfying final scene of The Full Cupboard of Life concludes with an apt biblical reference that affirms the profound sense of gratitude for life that pervades all of these books.

The No. 1 series is the creation of a quiet-spoken and astonishingly productive Scotsman. Born in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Alexander McCall Smith currently is a professor of medical law at Edinburgh University (and lives in the same neighborhood as J. K. Rowling). While helping to set up a school of law at the University of Botswana, which makes brief appearances in some of the books, he fell in love with the country about which he now writes so lyrically. His fictional world honors moral commitments and compassion, and he has said that he considers it "legitimate to write about virtue." As an advisor to UNESCO and the British government on bioethics, McCall Smith is familiar with ethical conundrums, and his internationally renowned work on forensic pathology undoubtedly lies behind some of Mma Ramotswe's deductions. He has written more than 50 books, including academic monographs, such as Forensic Aspects of Sleep; short story collections; and a number of popular children's books, including The Perfect Hamburger. His fans will be happy to hear that he has begun a new series of novels set in Edinburgh, featuring a new heroine, Isabel Dalhousie, editor of The Review of Applied Ethics, who is half Scottish and half American. The first volume in the series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, is scheduled for publication in September.

Susan VanZanten Gallagher directs the Center for Scholarship and Faculty Development at Seattle Pacific University.

1. On National Public Radio recently, McCall Smith revealed the secret behind Mr. J. L. B Matekoni's extended moniker (in the books, he is always identified thus): his full name is John Lempopo Basil, but he's embarrassed by the Basil, and his author is pleased to honor his preference for initials.

Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.