A Song of Comfortable Chairs (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series #23)

by Alexander McCall Smith

Overview

In this latest installment in the beloved No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Grace Makutsi encounters a pair of quandaries that will require all of her and Mma Ramotswe’s cleverness and generosity to resolve.

“An escape from life’s woes as well as a suggestion for how to make the whole deal more palatable—fragility, fruit cake, and all.” —The Boston Globe

Grace Makutsi’s husband, Phuti Radiphuti, is in a bind. An international firm is attempting to undercut his prices in the office furniture market. Phuti has always been concerned with quality and comfort, but this firm seems interested only in profits. To make matters worse, they have a slick new advertising campaign that seems hard to beat.
 
Meanwhile, Grace is approached by an old friend who has a troubled son. She and Phuti agree to take Patience and Modise in and lend a hand, but things don’t work out quite as intended, and the situation proves difficult for them to handle. It will require not only all of their persistence and dedication but also help from an unexpected quarter to find a solution that will make everyone happy.
 
Faced with more than her fair share of delicate dilemmas, Mma Makutsi deals with it all with her usual graciousness. This—along with the kindness, generosity, and good sense for which the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is known—assures us that, in the end, each of these matters will be set right.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593316979
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Series:	No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series , #23
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	4,445
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH is the author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels and of a number of other series and stand-alone books. His works have been translated into more than forty languages and have been best sellers throughout the world. He lives in Scotland.

Hometown:

Edinburgh, Scotland

Date of Birth:

August 24, 1948

Place of Birth:

Zimbabwe

Website:

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mccallsmith/index.html

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter One

The following day, Mma Ramotswe slept in rather longer than usual. The absence of the children meant that the house was unnaturally quiet, and she barely noticed Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni slipping out of bed. Nor did she hear him making his breakfast in the kitchen, or calling out, at the front door, “That’s me off to work now, Mma. Don’t forget to go to the office!” It was a well-worn joke between them: he would remind her to go to the office and she would respond by telling him that he should not forget to come home after work. On such small sayings and customs are marriages built—comfortable familiarity; and that, Mma Ramotswe always felt, made a better basis for a marriage than any amount of novelty.
 
She experienced a moment of panic when she eventually emerged from drowsiness and looked at the clock on her bedside table. It was already eight-thirty, a recklessly late hour for her, but then she remembered that the children were at their friends’ houses and did not have to be got ready for school. The agency was going through a quiet spell—several major inquiries had recently been satisfactorily concluded—and she had no appointments that day. Mma Makutsi would open up the office and together they would tackle some of the administrative tasks that had been piling up and needed to be attended to. She knew that Mma Makutsi would be keen to do some filing and she herself would work on the bills for recently completed investigations. There would be time for several tea breaks, of course, and in this way they could expect to spend a pleasant and not unduly stressful day in the office. It was also pos­sible that a new client might walk in off the street—one never knew when that would happen, and that was often the way in which some of their most interesting clients contacted them. Of course there were factors at work in the background, foremost of which was the word of mouth on which every business ultimately would succeed or fail.
 
She did not hurry. A leisurely breakfast of a fried egg, toast spread with honey, and a large cup of red bush tea was followed by a walk around her vegetable garden and a quick tidying-up of the living room. After that she was ready to prepare a sandwich for her lunch, have a final cup of tea, and then set off in her tiny white van for the short drive to the office. The traffic was light, as the morning rush was over, and she did not push her van beyond a stately fifteen miles an hour, a speed at which it seemed to be most comfortable and at which the fewest rattles and other worrying noises emerged from the engine compartment. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would have replaced the van at the drop of a hat, but Mma Ramotswe was as loyal to machinery as she was to people, and steadfastly refused to countenance the purchase of a new vehicle. One day the white van would finally expire, but that day had not yet come, and until then it did what was asked of it patiently and with dignity.
 
Parking the van in its accustomed place under an acacia tree, Mma Ramotswe walked past the entrance to the garage. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was busy performing open-heart surgery on a battered Land Rover, and did not see her, but Fanwell, his face streaked with grease, raised a spanner in salutation. Mma Ramotswe continued to the side of the garage, where a white-painted door constituted the entrance to the agency office.
 
Habit, more than anything else, made her knock. You did not have to knock on your own door, but she did, so deep was her engrained courtesy.
 
From within a voice invited her to enter.
 
“But Mma Ramotswe, it is just you!” exclaimed Mma Makutsi. “I thought it might be somebody important.”
 
Mma Makutsi realised how unfortunate that sounded, and quickly apologised. “I mean, you are very important, Mma—it’s just that I thought it might be a client.”
 
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I know what you mean, Mma. Don’t worry. Sometimes things come out the wrong way.”
 
She made her way towards her desk, but before she reached it, she noticed that something was different. It caught her eye from the side—a small name-plate, of engraved brass, mounted upon a wooden base, reading Mma Grace Makutsi. It was not a large sign, but at the same time it was not exactly small, and it was positioned on the side of Mma Makutsi’s desk so that it could be seen by anybody entering the room.
 
“My goodness!” exclaimed Mma Ramotswe. “What is that, Mma?”
 
At first Mma Makutsi affected not to know what Mma Ramotswe was talking about. “What is what, Mma?” she asked.
 
“That,” replied Mma Ramotswe, pointing at the name-plate.
 
Mma Makutsi allowed her gaze to drift to the sign. “Oh, that. That’s a name-plate, Mma. You see them on desks in offices. They tell the public who it is who’s sitting behind the desk. They are very modern things.”
Mma Ramotswe lowered herself into her chair. The sign was still visible, at an angle. “It’s very impressive, Mma Makutsi,” she said.
 
Mma Makutsi inclined her head. “Thank you, Mma. I think it will be helpful too.”
 
Mma Ramotswe thought about this. “Yes, you would not want people not to know who you are.”
 
“Precisely,” said Mma Makutsi.
 
“And it will be helpful for me too,” Mma Ramotswe went on. “I might be sitting here at my desk and when I look across the room I might think: Who is that lady sitting at the other desk? And then I shall see the sign, and all doubt will be removed. I shall say to myself, ‘That lady over there is Mma Grace Makutsi.’ At least, according to the sign, it’s Grace Makutsi.”
 
The irony was lost on Mma Makutsi, who simply nodded her agreement.
 
Then Mma Ramotswe said, “Is there a sign for me, Mma?”
 
Mma Makutsi frowned. “I paid for the sign myself, Mma. I did not expect the office to pay for it.”
 
Mma Ramotswe thanked her. “That was most considerate, Mma, but I wondered whether you had one made for me at the same time.”
 
There was a silence that seemed to last for some time. “I’m sorry,” Mma Makutsi said at last. “I did not think of that, Mma. I am very sorry.”
 
“That is all right,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that people coming here for an appointment know who I am. I do not think they need to be told.”
 
If there was reproach in Mma Ramotswe’s voice, it was mild; so mild, in fact, that it seemed to go unnoticed. “I can order one if you would like me to,” said Mma Makutsi. “Phuti knows the man who makes them. He made mine at a special rate. It was not expensive.”
 
Mma Ramotswe bit her lip. Her reply was measured. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said, then after the shortest of pauses added, “Thank you, anyway.” She tried not to sound hurt, but Mma Makutsi’s thoughtlessness had surprised her. She would never have done something like that—she would never have ordered a sign for herself and forgotten all about Grace, but that was another matter: Mma Makutsi had her little ways and it was always possible that her apparent selfishness had been entirely unintended.
 
“Are you sure, Mma?” Mma Makutsi pressed. “It would be helpful, I think, for us both to have these signs on our desks.”
 
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “Don’t worry, Mma, there are many more important things to think about.”
 
They set about their work, Mma Makutsi having already started filing the pile of papers on her desk and Mma Ramotswe having invoices to compile. It was while they were both engaged in these tasks that a knock came on the door and Mma Makutsi leaped up—somewhat guiltily, thought Mma Ramotswe—to admit the unexpected caller; except that he was not unexpected, as Mma Ramotswe was soon to discover.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for A Song of Comfortable Chairs and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“What a treat to discover . . . Brims with good humor and compassion.” —Entertainment Weekly

"Enthralling . . . [Mma Ramotswe] is someone readers can’t help but love.” —USA Today

“There is no end to the pleasure that may be extracted from these . . . books.” —Janet Malcolm, The New York Review of Books

“An escape from life’s woes as well as a suggestion for how to make the whole deal more palatable—fragility, fruit cake, and all.” —The Boston Globe

“The books, like their author, have charm. You cannot overstate the power of this—it’s the missing ingredient in contemporary fiction.” —The Guardian

“Entrancing . . . A tapestry of extraordinary nuance and richness.” —The Wall Street Journal

"McCall Smith choreographs an ingenious 'trickster tricked' plot here, centered on a swarm of cutthroat business people and one surly teenager. . . . Readers [will] delightedly immerse themselves in descriptions of the Botswana landscape; in Precious and Grace’s conversations over mugs of red bush tea; and in the doings of the rest of the cast of comic characters. Another delight from the prolific McCall Smith."
—Booklist *starred*

From the Publisher

04/01/2022

Even as Grace Makutsi's husband faces cutthroat competition from an international firm seeking to price him out of the office furniture market with a sleezy campaign touting subpar products, he and Mma Makutsi agree to help a friend's troubled child. Mma Ramotswe and grande dame Mma Potokwani pitch in, and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency triumphs again.

Library Journal