The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – Alexander McCall Smith

The first in a wildly successful series did not offer me enough reward to continue with the series. Whilst I enjoyed the unusual setting of Botswana and the no-nonsense central figure of Precious Ramotswe, too often the storytelling fell into tweeness. I was particularly irritated by the cowardly refusal to use the word AIDS when that is clearly what was being referred to, and a pointless episode involving a blindingly obvious solution ("they're twins!") that drags on interminably.