Rather like Noah's Ark, the problems requiring the tact and attention of Precious Ramotswe arrive in pairs in the 12th installment of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (Pantheon Books, 224 pp.).
On a remote cattle station, two cows have been slain and the farmer wants to know who's after his livestock. (The list of suspects is an impressively varied one, and includes the farmer himself.)
Assistant Detective Grace Makutsi's wedding is (at long last) coming up, but the shoes her fiance let her choose as a gift have two broken heels and she's afraid to tell him. Most worrisomely, Mma Ramotswe's husband's apprentice, Charlie, is rumored to have fathered twins and has run away.
Armed with bush tea and the teachings of Clovis Anderson, Mma Ramotswe will of course find gentle, generous solutions for all. But to top it all off, she is seeing visions of her late, lamented white van. Sure, she has a new vehicle with a working suspension system, but the van was her faithful companion. In McCall Smith's Botswana, treasuring what you already have counts for more than acquiring the newest and shiniest.
