Tag: africa

Burton and Speke

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Harrison, William. Burton and Speke. New York: St. Martin’s, 1982.

Reason read: September is National Curiosity Month. What better way to satisfy curiosity than to go exploring the source of the Nile?

Richard Francis Burton was a legendary adventurer who also had a reputation for being a great lover. John Hanning Speke also had a reputation for being an adventurer and a lover, albeit of a different kind. When they first met, Speke needed Burton in order to get to Africa. Luckily, Burton was already going that way. Burton’s mission in Somaliland was in four parts:

  1. Discourage slavery
  2. Establish a camp for later use
  3. Search for gold
  4. “Examine” the women to study their sexual practices

As with any expedition into the unknown, Burton and Speke encounter many trials and tribulations. More often than not, their equipment and supplies were either being broken or getting lost. Crews and guides were constantly deserting them. It didn’t help that Burton and Speke couldn’t be more different from one another when it came down to leading the expeditions. Burton prided himself on his intellect, especially when it came to native languages across the regions. (He would go on to translate Arabian Nights and  The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana.) He had an understanding of the necessity of breaking down language barriers. Instead of brains, Speke valued his brawn, his hunting capabilities and his sheer physical strength. While Burton sought the company of many different beautiful women, Speke wouldn’t turn away a pretty boy. Their differences soon drove them apart and made them fierce rivals. In the end, it was Speke who discovered the source of the Nile but because he lacked the scientific evidence to explain how this came to be he was ridiculed and almost discredited. Richard Burton became faithful to one woman and became an anthropologist.

As an aside, I liked manservant End of Time’s name. That’s it – End of Time.
A cringe worthy moment – when the beetle crawled deep inside Speke’s ear and he went mad trying to dig it out with a knife.

Quote I liked, “Aloofness was a bore – especially when practiced amidst life’s frailties” (p 133).

Author fact: Harrison has written a bunch of other works, but this is the only one I am reading.

Book trivia: Confessional: I thought this was a nonfiction before I received the book.
It’s actually a historical novel.

Nancy said: Burton and Speke tries to solve an age-old debate of who found the source of the Nile.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Explorers” (p 85). Pretty straightforward.

December Did Not

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December did not suck entirely. I was able to run 97 miles out of the 97 promised. The in-law holiday party was a lot of fun and I got to most of the books on my list:
Nonfiction:

  • Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming (DNF)
  • Rainbow’s End by Lauren St. John
  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived in by Esther Forbes
  • On the Ocean by Pytheas (translated by Christina Horst Roseman)
  • Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser
  • Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre .
  • River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard (AB)

Fiction:

  • Tu by Patricia Grace – I read this in four days because it was due back at a library that didn’t allow renewals.

Series:

  • Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright. I listened to this on audio on my lunch breaks. It was a good way to escape for a little while each day. Confessional: I didn’t finish the whole thing but since it is a continuation of the series it doesn’t matter.

Early Review:

  • Yoga for Athletes by Ryanne Cunningham – this was an October book that took me a little time to review because I was too busy using it to run!
  • Disaster Falls: a family story by Stephane Gerson

Rainbow’s End

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St. John, Lauren. rainbow’s end: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm. New York: Scribner, 2007.

Reason read: December 4th used to be Shangani Day in Rhodesia.

Rainbow’s End is a 1000 acre farm and game preserve in Rhodesia. In the fall of 1978 eleven year old Lauren St. John moves there with her family. This is during the dying, yet bloody, last stages of the Rhodesian Bush War. Rainbow’s End isn’t just a sprawling farm, it is also the scene of a bloody massacre less than a year earlier. The blood evidence still lingered.
Because Lauren’s coming of age years coincided with her time on the Rainbow’s End farm and the end of Rhodesia her memoir is part teenage angst biography and part commentary on the the war and its politics. Was it about Communism versus democracy or black against white? What makes Rainbow’s End so interesting is Lauren’s perception of being white in newly formed Zimbabwe after Independence and the realization she has been loving a war for all the wrong reasons.
There is no doubt of Rhodesia’s untamed beauty.

A line I liked, “Then I relocated to the sofa where I had my new books fanned around me like lives waiting to be lived” (p 48). As an aside, I can remember doing that same thing when I was a kid. I’d put the books in a row and pick one based on where I wanted to go next.

Author fact: St. John has also written a few sports books. None of them are on my list.

Book trivia: rainbow’s end includes a smattering of non-personal (if you don’t count the cover) photographs and a couple of maps. Interestingly enough, one of the maps includes “hippo pools.” Oh goody.

Nancy said: nada. She just listed it for the chapter.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zambia/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 269).

Jingle the Books

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December is going to be a crazy month. I need to run 93  miles. I will be hosting my in-law’s Holiday party for the first time. I’m going to the Christmas Eve Patriots Game. What else? Oh. The books!

Nonfiction:

  • Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming ~ in honor of December being the best time to visit Peru
  • Rainbow’s End by Lauren St. John ~ in honor of Shangani Day in Rhodesia.
  • Paul Revere and the World He Lived in by Esther Forbes ~ in honor of Revere’s birth month (I’m guessing since he was baptized on January first.)
  • On the Ocean by Pytheas (translated by Christina Horst Roseman) ~ in honor of finally finding a copy of this book!
  • Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser ~ in honor of Rome’s Saturnalia Solstice.
  • Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre ~ in honor of December being the best time to visit India.

Fiction:

  • Tu by Patricia Grace ~ in honor of New Zealand being discovered in December.

Series:

  • Spiderweb for Two by Elizabeth Enright ~ in honor of finishing the series started in September in honor of Enright’s birth month.

Early Review:

  • Yoga for Athletes by Ryanne Cunningham ~ for LibraryThing

Consul’s Wife

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Tyler, W.T. The Consul’s Wife. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1998.

Reason read: at the time I chose this book I was reading it in honor of Odette Krempin being an honorary consul of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but now I’m hearing she supposedly died (or is hiding to avoid corruption charges in Belgium). The plot thickens!

This is a love story. Hugh Mathews, a foreign service officer stationed in the Congo, juggles his embassy’s embarrassing ineptitude concerning tribal relations while slowly falling in love with the consul’s wife. Hugh and Margaret (Blakey to her friends) share a deep appreciation for authentic African art, the older and the uglier, the better.
Hugh is a complicated man of few words. As the African landscape grows more violent he questions the world around him. That inquiry leads to deeper self reflection and soon he questions his own being and motives.

Quotes to quote (and there were a lot of them). I lost my notes, so here is the one I remember: “All I knew was that there was far more to my life that I understood or could reveal to others” (p 50), “The little truths that shrivel the soul are always uglier than the ones you brought back” (p 133), and “Terribly rich in memory. he was terribly poor in practical things” (p 170).

Book trivia: The Consul’s Wife is short, barely 200 pages long.

Author fact: Tyler is a former diplomat.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Congo: From Colonialism to Catastrophe” (p 69).

Half of a Yellow Sun

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Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. Read by Robin Miles. New York: Recorded Books, 2008.

Reason read: Half of a Yellow Sun was made into a movie – read in honor of the Academy Awards sometimes being in February and sometimes in March.

This is the story of five individuals during the short time of Biafra’s secession from Nigeria in the early ’60s. First is Ugwu, a young village boy sent to be the servant of a university mathematics professor. He knows his situation in Professor Odenigbo’s home is very good compared to other servant boys so he is careful not to “rock the boat” but all the while he keeps his ears and eyes open. His is a coming of age story of sorts. Professor Odenigbo is passionate and outspoken about the plight of the African continent, especially when it comes to political influences. Despite his strong opinions he is easily dominated by his mother. This weakness leads to his undoing, starting with his romance with Olanna. Olanna’s relationship with Odenigbo defies her parents and their thinly veiled wish for her to be used as a pawn to marry wealth or royalty. Her strength comes from acceptance and forgiveness. Much like her twin sister, Kainene (my favorite character in the group). Kainene has defiantly fallen in love with very British and very white, Richard Churchill. While the twins appear to be very different from one another they share the same underlying vulnerabilities. Finally, there is Kainene’s Richard Churchill. He has come to Nigeria to write a book about Igbo art. Instead he finds himself caught up in the secession and hoping to immerse himself in the new Biafra as one of its new citizens. Then there is the violence of war…

Swirling around these characters are issues of race, identity, and sense of belonging. There is one poignant scene when Richard admits to never feeling danger despite being in the midst of a brutal massacre. His white skin allowed him to remain outside the violence. Even his romance with an Igbo woman did nothing to threaten his sense of being merely an innocent outsider.

Author fact: Adichie did a TED talk in July of 2009 on feminism.

Book trivia: Half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange Broadband Prize.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Africa, the Greenest Continent” (p 9).

 

Leopard Hunts in Darkness

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Smith, Wilbur. The Leopard Hunts in Darkness. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1984.

This is the penultimate book in the Ballantyne series. The book opens, as all the others do, with a snapshot of the landscape. This time we follow a bull elephant and his desperate escape from hunters. It’s a savage start to Leopard, but very typical of Smith and very telling of the rest of the story, for it’s all about poachers. The story then follows Craig Mellow out of Africa and into the urban jungle of New York City. At the end of Angels Weep Mellow has just found out his book, Flight of the Falcon has been accepted for publication. Unlike other Ballantyne books in the series, Leopard does not start with a date. The reader is not grounded in the era until later. Of course, in order to make the story go back to Africa, Mellow returns to his homeland to revitalize his country and start a nature preserve with photographer, Sally-Anne. Typical of all Smith/Ballantyne books there is savage violence, passionate love scenes and gorgeous landscapes to draw every kind of reader in.

Just a funny side note: the cover of The Leopard Hunts in Darkness depicts a man holding out a gun at arm’s length, a woman holding a Nikon up to her eye, and a man who looks suspiciously like Elvis reflected in the lens of the camera. The gun-toting gentleman looks a little like Treat Williams!

Reason read: This finishes the series I started in January in honor of Rhodesia’s Shangani Day. In a way I am a little disappointed to be leaving Wilbur Smith’s world.

Author fact: Smith looks a little like the guy on the cover of The Leopard Hunts in Darkness which is to say Wilbur Smith looks a little like Treat Williams!

Book trivia: The Leopard Hunts in Darkness is Smith’s 17th book. Interesting to note, this isn’t the last book in the series. It ends with The Triumph of the Sun, which I am not reading.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

Angels Weep

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Smith, Wilbur. The Angels Weep. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982.

We begin The Angels Weep in the year 1895. Right away we join Zouga Ballantyne and his son, Ralph as they search for treasure (what else is new?). The other same old-same old themes are sex, violence and prejudice all leading to another war. The characters are older (Ralph now has a son, Jonathan or Jon-Jon), but their ambitions and attitudes are the same. Even Robyn Ballantyne is the same. She is so desperate to understand malaria that she stops taking quinine pills and infects herself with the virus in order to further her research. As with Falcon Flies and Men of Men, whites are still mistreating blacks and the power struggles continue. It is on this struggle that Smith centers his conflict. He masterfully shows both sides and when one side betrays the other you find yourself asking, “how could they?!” while your rational side is asking, “how could they NOT?!” Friend betrays friend. Years of companionship are wiped away in a single gunshot. Part II of the book takes us 80 years into the future when we meet Ralph’s great grandson and other heirs. Craig Mellow becomes a prominent figure in the end. There is a nice little twist that made me think the series should have ended here. It brings everything full circle.

Line I liked, “There could never be love where there had been blood” (p 98).

Reason read: This is the penultimate book in the Ballantyne series I started in January in honor of Rhodesia’s Shangani Day.

Book trivia: It isn’t necessary to read the other Ballantyne books (Falcon Flies and Men of Men) in order to pick up The Angels Weep, but it helps. Smith does a great job filling in from book to book, but to get the big picture you need to read the series in order.

Author fact: According to the back flap of The Angels Weep Smith took a sabbatical year with his wife and traveled all over the place.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called, “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 269).

Men of Men

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Smith, Wilbur. Men of Men. New York: Doubleday & co., 1983.

Because Men of Men picks up where Flight of the Falcon left off we rejoin Zouga Ballantyne. Now he is ten years older and married to a society girl named Aletta. Despite many miscarriages she has given him two boys, Ralph and Jordan. Somehow Zouga has convinced his family to join him in Africa where he is still searching for riches, only this time instead of elephants and gold it is diamonds. His eldest son, Ralph, is exposed to gambling, violence and prostitution at sixteen, literally coming of age in the bush. It’s Ralph we continue to follow for the most of Men of Men although most characters from Flight return. Robyn, Mungo, Clinton and Charoot, to name a few. In reality, it is everyone’s greed we bear witness to. As with all of Smith’s other books, Men of Men is rich with African history and adventure as well as strong characters, only there are more of them to play with.

Typical quotes, “It was a beautiful stabbing, a glory which men would sing about” (p 291),

Reason read: Men of Men continues the series started with Flight of the Falcon in December. Read in honor of Rhodesia’s Shangani Day.

Author fact: Wilbur Smith’s middle name is Addison. What a cool name!

Book trivia: Wilbur uses the same picture for his photo on the dust jacket. Except this photo has been darkened a little so there is a strange shadow across half his face.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

A Falcon Flies

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Smith, Wilbur. A Falcon Flies. Read by Stephen Thorne. Hampton: BBC Audiobooks America, 1980.

A Falcon Flies opens with Dr. Robyn Ballantyne sailing to southern Africa on a mission. She hopes to bring medical aid and Christianity to the people of her birthplace, single handedly bring an end to the slave trade, and find her famous-yet-missing missionary father. Along for the ride is her brother, Zouga. Once in Africa, Zouga plays a big part in solving the mystery of his missing father while Robyn is distracted with the attention of different men. Luckily, this only occurs in the beginning of the book. Subsequently, Robyn becomes a fierce, brave, independent woman, hellbent on finding her father and delivering kindness to every native she meets.
Wilbur Smith’s style of writing is, at times, soap-opera exaggerated. Robyn’s emotions are extremely dramatic. Once I was able to accept this bewilderment as fact I was able to enjoy the book that much more. Since it goes on for over 500 pages, this was a good thing!

As an aside: For me, personally, there is something positively creepy about a man writing about desiring a man from a woman’s point of view. I don’t know what it is, but the sexual tension scenes in A Falcon Flies seemed over the top. Smith’s description of Captain Mungo St. John’s body from Dr. Robyn Ballantyne’s point of view was a little ridiculous. Ballantyne is attracted and repelled by the captain, but you know which side wins out. The scene with her waiting in the captain’s bedchambers with pistols drawn is a little silly. Maybe I should read more bodice-rippers in an effort to get used to such high-fainting drama.

I find it increasingly frustrating to listen to an audio book that skips all the time. As a librarian, I feel it is my moral responsibility to loan material that is pleasurable to the patron. I would have deaccessioned this audio book a longtime ago!

Reason read: Shangani Day (December 4th) was an official holiday in Rhodesia, back in 1895. Read in honor of that day.

Author fact: Smith has quite the flashy website here. It was fun to poke around.

Book trivia: A Falcon Flies was published in the United States as Flight of the Falcon.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 269).

Scramble for Africa

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Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa: White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers, 1991.

This book comes in 738 pages long (if you read the index). I knew right away I wasn’t going to finish it. What I didn’t realize is that I didn’t even want to start it.
This is everything you want to know about the background of Africa’s beginnings from 1878 to 1912. In a very comprehensive and detailed prose Pakenham uncovers the early “scramble” Europeans made to conquer the unknown “dark” territory. In just under 30 years most of the continent was claimed and “civilized” by five different greedy European powers.

Reason read: July is the best time to visit Africa…or so the travel sites say.

Author fact: According to the author page in Scramble for Africa Pakenham lived in a “crumbling castle” in Ireland. How cool is that?

Book trivia: Scramble for Africa won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and the Alan Paton award.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Africa: Today and Yesterday” (p 9).

Beneath the Lion’s Gaze

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Mengiste, Maaza. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze. Tantor Audio, 2010.

The first half of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze tells of the downfall of Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia and self professed king of kings, and the subsequent brutal rise of the Derg. Selassie’s rein as emperor was, at first, a positive and influential one. Then in the early 70s popular opinion shifted as gas prices rose, food shortages become more frequent, and middle class workers went on strike. Famine was widespread and public outcry was loud. Tensions came to a head when a splinter group of the military overthrew the government, taking the great and powerful Selassie with it. Peppered throughout the historical tale are the human interest elements centered around one family. Hailu, a physician loyal to Selassie is witness to the brutalities of torture while his wife quietly dies of congestive heart failure. He eventually is arrested after aiding in the death of a tortured prisoner. This prisoner, a brutalized teenage girl becomes a focus of mystery. The reader doesn’t know her significance to Hailu and Selassie until the end. Meanwhile Hailu’s sons are on either side of the political fence. His older son, a professor, is the sensible one. Married with a family, he tries to stay neutral in the conflict. Hailu’s younger son is caught up in student protests and eagerly hands out pamphlets stoking the fires out outrage. Both sides will eventually feel the effects of being under the powerful and violent thumb of the Derg

While her subject matter is tragic (there is a lot of vivid violence and torture), Mengiste writes with such lyrical imagery that it is easy to keep reading her words – like adding a spoonful of sugar to the medicine, or, in my world, like listening to Natalie Merchant’s “What’s the matter here?” It’s a song about child abuse with a really catchy, extremely danceable melody behind it.

Reason read: May 28th is traditionally celebrated as Derg Downfall Day to celebrate the end of the Derg in 1991.

Author fact: Beneath the Lion’s Gaze was Maaza Mengiste’s debut book. She has an interesting website that is also incredibly difficult to read (black backgrounds with white wording is almost never a good idea).

Book trivia: I am not going to spoil the ending of the book but I do want to say that Mengiste holds you in suspense until the bitter end. So much so that I found I had actually been holding my breath waiting for the resolution.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Ethiopia, Or As We Used To Say, Abyssinia!” (p 81).

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

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Smith. Alexander McCall. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.

What is that saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same. When we catch up to Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe is now still at the agency but she is now married to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Her assistant, Mma Matekutsi is still at the agency (although there is no mention of her typing school) and she is engaged to a well-to-do furniture salesman. The big drama lies with Mma Matekutsi. She has a competitor, another woman trying to steal her fiance away with immoral tactics. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe’s home life is doing well with the exception of her beloved tiny white van. As it becomes older it gets harder and harder to fix. She soon begins to hide the troubles from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni for fear he will tell her to get rid of it. It seems unusual for Mma Ramotswe to love the tiny white van as much as she does but she considers it part of the family and goes to great lengths to keep it around. The one “mystery” of the book involves an always-losing football team. The manager is convinced someone is a traitor and losing games on purpose. Mma Ramotswe has been hired to find the culprit, which of course, she does.

A very good line, “Until you hear the whole story, until you dig deeper, and listen, she thought, you know only a tiny part of the goodness of the human heart” (p 60).

Reason read: This concludes my time with Mma Ramotswe and her friends. I started the series back in January with The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in honor of Mystery month. I am sad to be ending this journey because I fell in love with the series.

Book trivia: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built isn’t the end of the series. It goes on but unfortunately I won’t be along for the ride.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Botswana” (p 42).

Full Cupboard of Life

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Smith, Alexander McCall. The Full Cupboard of Life

Reason read: In honor of Mystery Month I started this series way back in January. The Full cupboard of Life is the fifth book in the series recommended by Nancy Pearl in either Book Lust, more Book Lust, or Book Lust To Go. I am nearing the end of my time with Mma Ramotswe and her family at the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I started in January with The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and now have one more book to read after The Full Cupboard of Life.

When we return to Mma Ramotswe we learn she is still engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. They have yet to set a wedding date. There is no doubt Mma Ramotswe is patient lady! Although, in this 5th installment she is losing faith and dares to ask Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni the dreaded “when” question. It is even starting to weigh on Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as he dreams about a wedding date.
The one noticeable difference about The Full Cupboard of Life is that, unlike previous books in the series, the plot is not as seamless as the others. Instead of picking up where the reader left off Smith takes the time to bring the reader back to the very beginning of the series, explaining who Mma Ramotswe is and how she came to have the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana. He also takes the time to reintroduce us to Mma Ramotswe’s beloved daddy and other early relationships. There is less emphasis on “mysteries” to solve.

Book trivia: The Full Cupboard of Life is  the last book I will read in order in the series. After this I am actually skipping THREE others: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, Blue Shoes and Happiness, and The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (does this mean I missed the wedding?). I wonder why Pearl doesn’t include them in any of her recommendations?

Author fact: Alexander McCall Smith is currently on a lecture tour but (unfortunately!) comes nowhere near me. Bummer. I’m a huge fan now.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 171). But, of course. As an aside, this was the first book I listened to on cassette and sadly, the tape was a little warped. This listening experience was not as enjoyable as the disc versions.

Morality for Beautiful Girls

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Smith, Alexander McCall. Morality for Beautiful Girls. Read by Lisette Lecat. Prince Frederick, Maryland: Recorded Books, 2003.

Let’s recap the last two books shall we?: In The Number #1 Ladies Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe has started Botswana’s only detective agency. She not only builds the reputation of her shop but her relationship with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni (owner of an auto repair shop). Continuing in Tears of the Giraffe Mma Ramotswe takes on more complicated cases and becomes engaged and a mother (practically at the same time). Now in Morality for Beautiful Girls Mma Ramotswe becomes more involved with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s mechanic shop business and the two children she has adopted with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She takes on one major case involving a government man who is convinced his brother is being poisoned by someone in the family. This case requires her to leave home overnight. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe’s assistant, Mma Makutsi, is climbing the business ladder as well. Not only does she become acting manager of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s repair shop while he is ill she also becomes an assistant detective and handles a huge case on her own because Mma Ramotswe is out of town. It’s this case that is the title of the book. Mma Makutsi is hired to find out which contestants of a beauty competition are beautiful on the inside AND out. Mma Makutsi is charged with finding the morality in the girls. In this particular installment of the series MCcall Smith focuses on morality on all levels. The initial focus is on the beauty queens but really he questions all of Africa’s morality as well.

Reason read: This continues the series started in January in honor of Mystery month.

Author fact: Alexander McCall Smith has his own website here. I particularly like the birds flying around. It’s charming.

Book trivia: This is the third book in the series starring Mma Ramotswe. Now Mma Ramotswe’s life is getting a little complicated!

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust from the chapter called “Ms Mystery” (p 171).