Alexander McCall Smith. The Joy and Light Bus Company. Pantheon, 2021. No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

Like cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.
                                                                   —Proverbs 25:25

Yes, that is our reaction to many of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books including this new one, The Joy and Light Bus Company. This tale from the distant country of Botswana brings joy to readers and leaves them with an afterglow.

Readers of the series already know the main characters. There are Precious Ramotswe, the founder of the detective agency; her husband, Mr. J. L. B. Maketoni; her partner, Grace Makutsi; and her best friend and matron of the orphanage, Mma Potokwane.

Mr. J. L. B. Maketoni has generally been a man of steady habits. He provides a certain security and foundation for Mma Ramotswe. So when his habits seem to change, that upsets Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi. Is there a midlife crisis? Is something else going on?

The story begins with the two detective ladies discussing the differences between men and women. The story perhaps exemplifies one of those differences. Female friends get together often. They remember one another’s birthdays. Men are not usually like that. But that does not mean they do not have friends.

Rra Maketoni attends a business forum sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. One of the speakers turns out to be an old friend from middle school. They were good friends back then but went their separate ways. Still, they trust and respect each other, so when they meet at the forum, it is as if the thirty years between did not matter.

T. K. Molefi has become a successful businessman. He has a business proposal for his old friend. He is looking to start a bus company. He believes there is a underserved population that will take advantage of low cost transportation. Would Rra Maketoni like to invest? There is a great opportunity to see the investment grow and grow.

What scares the ladies is that J. L. B. is looking to mortgage the building that contains their office and his Speedy Motors garage. What if he cannot meet the payments? What if the bank takes possession?

Of course, there is some detective work going on as well. A well-known businessman asks for the detective agency’s help. His father, who started the business, is getting old and has been cared for by a live-in nurse. He understands that his father has recently revised his will to include the nurse. The businessman calls the nurse wicked and believes she has taken advantage of the old man. He would like them to find evidence to show either that his father is no longer in his right mind or the nurse has had undue influence over her patient.

When Mma Ramotswe visits Mma Potokwane at the Orphan Farm for advice on this case and her husband, she meets a new charge there. This orphan girl is about thirteen years old and has escaped from the home of a very wealthy family where she had been held as a domestic slave. Now, like most countries, Botswana has outlawed slavery, but poor families will sometimes sell their children into slavery or prostitution or use their children to settle a debt. Such trafficking happens to some degree in all countries.

Grace Makutsi knows of the family,too. She calls them the Pula-Pulas. Readers may recall that the Pula is the Botswanan currency. It would be like an American naming them the MegaBucks. This could be a serious situation. It is not as if the family cannot afford to pay for the girl’s domestic help, but they are exploiting people and, no doubt, scaring and scarring them into submission.

Precious Ramotswe manages to make some things more complicated. But at the same time, we know she cares. She discovers that the client’s father’s nurse is really quite lovely and caring. Whose side should she take? After all, she was not hired by the nurse. She would like to do something about the alleged slave owners, but she would not have much of a leg to stand on in a court of law. Why, too, is she having problems trusting her husband, whom she loves and usually respects?

Even though these may seem like hard situations, and to a degree they are, there is an undercurrent of good humor in this story as in all of Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency tales. For example, Grace and Precious meet a secretary who was a year behind Grace at the Botswana Secretarial College. While they did not know each other, they start reminiscing about some of the teachers and the reputations of some of the students. Grace learns that this secretary also has had some bad experience with the notorious Violet Sephuto. From that point, they are friends…

Violet has a way of appearing in some form in most of these stories. While not on the same scale—she is no “Napoleon of crime,” just a petty thief and swindler—she lurks in the background just as Professor Moriarty did in some of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

As always, the cases are settled. Not necessarily at all the way Mma Ramotswe or Mma Makutsi would have thought, but they are. And through it all, we get a sense that while people have a tendency towards sin, and some do exploit others terribly, all persons are, as Mma Potokwane reminds us, made in the image of God and have potential for great good as well.