Ousted as editor of the "Review of Applied Ethics", Isabel thankfully has ner newborn son to keep her occupied. What's more, Charlie's adoring father Jamie has offered the most intriguing proposal of all--marriage. But before she can settle into a quiet, domestic existence, Isabel becomes entangled in an art world mystery. At an auction, two paintings attributed to a deceased artist hit the market at the same time, and both paintings have unusual...

Isabel's life is thrown for a few loops when her cousin Mimi arrives from Dallas with her husband Joe. Through them, Isabel meets Tom Bruce, who is to marry someone Isabel suspects of gold-digging. Further complicating matters, Tom seems to have an unusual level of interest in Isabel. Meanwhile, Isabel has her own feelings to deal with.

There is the surveyor who dreams of a membership in Muirfield golf club. There is the pushy Stockbridge mother. There is the intellectual lady who sees herself as part of a much larger world. These characters and more confront issues of trust, love, and loss.

When her niece Cat travels to a wedding in Italy, Isabel agrees to fill in at Cat's delicatessen. She takes note of a customer named Ian, who is avoiding chocolate--doctors say it's bad for the new heart he recently recieved. Ian is haunted by memories he can't quite place, prompting Isabel to wonder if his new heart may be the cause. Always keenly interested in matters of the heart, Isabel investigates and discovers some rather surprising truths....

Handling a busy case load at The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and contending with an intruder in her home, Mma Ramotswe has plenty on her mind. So when her unfortunate past returns to haunt her, she is happy her husband, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, is distracted as well. It seems one of his apprentices at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors has raced off with an older, wealthy woman.

"Precious Ramotswe is back and, as usual, her plate is full! She's called in to tackle a mysterious disciplinary problem at her adopted daughter's school...Her infinitely trustworthy assistant, Grace Makutsi, is having trouble adjusting to wedded bliss, a problem to test even the formidable talents of Mma Ramotswe...And the estimable Clovis Andersen, author of The Principles of Private Investigation--the No. 1 Ladies' prized manual--has arrived, right...

Mma "Precious" Ramotswe is now engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the kind owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. This new development provokes a hostile reaction from Mr. Matekoni's unscrupulous maid, who quickly begins plotting the disintegration of the engagement. Despite all this, duty calls, and Mma Ramotswe is asked to help find an American woman's son who has been missing in Africa for 10 years.

This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith's 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 at her heart,...

Investigating a young boy's uncanny claims about his past life in Scotland, Isabel Dalhousie discovers increasingly strange questions surrounding the house where the boy claimed to live.

Precious Ramotswe is asked to help the proprietor of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, who is having trouble with her business. The salon has suffered some unfortunate events, including face cream that burns the skin. Could someone be trying to put the salon out of business? Meanwhile, on the home front, Grace Makutsi is going to have a baby. But in Botswana--a land where family has always been held above all else but which is on the crossroads between...