The Great Hippopotamus Hotel

A chance meeting with the manager of The Great Hippopotamus Hotel leads the much-admired and traditionally-built Precious Ramotswe to investigate what is going wrong with this previously successful country hotel. Guests have been unwell, clothing has disappeared from the washing line, and scorpions have found their way into the guest bedrooms. Mma Ramotswe drives out to the hotel with her irrepressible colleague, Grace Makutsi (97 per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College). What they find there are family conflicts that only the investigators of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency will be able to resolve.

Meanwhile, at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, Mma Ramotswe's husband, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, gets a visit from a middle-aged client who wants to purchase a fast Italian sports car. What should the conscientious garagiste do in such circumstances? Should the client's wife be told? Mma Ramotswe is used to wrestling with such tricky questions, but it is harder for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

And in the background is that beautiful country, Botswana, with its wide skies and its courteous people. In such surroundings, big problems soon seem small, and small worries fade away altogether.

As charming as ever... In these increasingly fractious and febrile times, we perhaps need Mma Ramotswe more than ever Washington Post
McCall Smith's novels have a charm that seems to belong to a possibly mythical older time, but in one sense they are very much of our own day... Enjoying this new Botswana novel, I heard faint echoes of A Window in Thrums. There is the same charm, the same acuteness, the same humour, the same generous understanding -- Allan Massie Scotsman
McCall Smith makes sure that new readers are well-oriented; they can start anywhere in the series and still get the full flavor of the rich characterizations, gentle humor, Botswanan atmosphere, and Ramotswe's wisdom Booklist, starred review
Smith's breezy latest outing for Botswanan sleuths Precious Ramotswe and Grace Makutsi finds the pair digging into the operations of a struggling hotel. . . . [featuring] Mma Ramotswe and company's dryly funny musings and Smith's evocative descriptions of life in Gaborone. Series fans will get just what they came for Publishers Weekly

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of over one hundred books on a wide array of subjects, including the award-winning The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. He is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie novels and the world's longest-running serial novel, 44 Scotland Street. His books have been translated into forty-six languages. Alexander McCall Smith is Professor Emeritus of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh and holds honorary doctorates from thirteen universities. He was knighted by the King in 2024.

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