I haven't listened to an audio book in a while. I picked up a couple from the library for the drive down and back from the beach. I wound up only listening a little bit. I think I only through 2 discs out of 8. So off and on for the last two weeks, I have been listening very slowly to this, the 17th book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexandra McCall Smith. I haven't kept up with every book in the series. I think I've read four or five so far.
The characters of Precious Ramotswe, her secretary/associate Grace Makutsi, and her husband, JLB Matekoni inhabit an intimate circle of friends in the capital city of Botswana. Precious is a wise, gentle, thinking woman. She adores her daddy, Obed Ramotswe who passed away and for whom she still mourns. She had a very short, disastrous marriage in her youth. But now is in her early 40s and quietly married to Mr. JLB Matekoni. She always calls him that because for years he was her mechanic who kept her tiny white van going. But I think the fact that she calls him that symbolizes her distance from men in general.
And this is a major theme of the book, Precious Ramotswe's relationship to men. Men are difficult to comprehend. The men in her life are either henpecked, too laconic to really relate to, like her husband though she is fond of him, or unfaithful. In spite of these deficiencies, she reveres her own father as a great man. But in this book she encounters a situation that tears apart her memory of him and threatens to break her heart.
It is a gentle and nuanced tale. The reader for this audio book was one of the best I've ever encountered. She is a perfect match for this book. Her name is Lisette Lecat from South Africa, and apparently she's gained a very good reputation because of her impeccable reading of these popular books. Listening to her reading made this book even more enjoyable.
Two thumbs up! For more book reviews go to Read 52 Book in 52 Weeks.
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