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...

Precious Ramotswe, the proprietor of Botswana's only ladies' detective agency, tracks a wayward wife, uncovers an unscrupulous maid, and searches for an American man who disappeared into the plains many years ago, all while pondering her impending marriage.

Struggling to come to grips with her assistant's resignation, detective Precious Ramotswe has her hands full with a trio of cases involving unexplained deaths at a nearby hospital, an allegedly cheating husband, and thievery at a local printing company.

Precious is busier than usual at the detective agency when she discovers an intruder in her house on Zebra Driveand perhaps even more bafflinga pumpkin on her porch. Her associate, Mma Makutsi, also has a full plate. She's taken up dance lessons, only to be partnered with a man with two left feet. At Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, where Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is already overburdened with work, one of his apprentices has run off with a wealthy older woman....

A collection of poems evoking the world and feelings of childhood. It is one of the best-loved classic poetry collections ever written and is illustrated here by the world-famous artist Michael Foreman in a beautiful new gift edition, with a foreword by Alexander McCall Smith.

Filled with thorny characters and a Scottish atmosphere as thick as a highland mist, The Sunday Philosophy Club is irresistible, and Isabel Dalhousie is the most delightful literary sleuth since Precious Ramotswe. With The Sunday Philosophy Club, Alexander McCall Smith, the author of the best-selling and beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels, begins a wonderful new series starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie. Isabel is fond...

Precious Ramotswe heads to a Botswana game preserve to investigate the death of an elderly American tourist, while at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, Mma Ramotswe's husband suddenly decides to mortgage the garage.

"The detectives who work in Malmo Police's Department of Sensitive Crimes take their job very seriously. The lead detective, Ulf Varg, prioritizes his cases above even his dog's mental health. Then there are detectives Anna Bengsdotter, who keeps her relationship with Varg professional even as she realizes she's developing feelings for him . . . or at least for his car, and Carl Holgersson, first to arrive in the morning and last to leave, who would...

Emma Woodhouse arrives home in Norfolk ready to embark on adult life. Not only has her sister, Isabella, been whisked away on a motorcycle up to London, but her astute governess, Miss Taylor is at a loose end, abandoned in the giant family pile, Hartfield, alongside Emma's anxiety-ridden father. Someone is needed to rule the roost and young Emma is more than happy to oblige. But there is only one person who can play with Emma's indestructible confidence,...

Inspired by a love of trains and the nature of love, a series of intertwined romantic tales follows the experiences of four strangers traveling from Edinburgh to London who entertain each other with reminiscences about how trains have changed their lives.