Book Review: Blue Shoes and Happiness

Book: Blue Shoes and Happiness (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book #7) by Alexander McCall Smith

Edition: Paperback

Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Review:

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books are truly what I think of as cozy mystery because reading Blue Shoes and Happiness was like drinking a hot cup of tea. As the story plays out you are swept up in the lives of these characters before the actual mysteries start to develop. Such as with Grace Makutsi, a total misunderstanding was plaguing her as she thought her engagement with her fiancé Phuti Radiphuti was in jeopardy of ending.

And when the mysteries do start to unfold, Detective Precious Ramotswe and her assistant Detective Makutsi inadvertently found themselves with several cases such as insuring a woman would not lose her job as a cook at a university, and in a separate yet related case dealing with the senior cook of the university who was being extorted, while another case dealt with strange occurrences at a wildlife game reserve and lastly a doctor who maybe up to something questionable surrounding his patients.

Detective Ramotswe received additional help from Mr Polopetsi, who works at both her detective agency and at her husband Mr J. L. B. Matekoni's repair shop Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

This series is probably one of the rare instances where I'm not annoyed that it takes a while before a mystery begins which is one of my pet peeves. However, for this seventh book it felt like it took perhaps longer than the other books in the series to finally get the mystery part of the story going. There also wasn't enough attention focused on providing the reader with clues to help figure out the mysteries.

I do enjoy this series because it has unique and interesting characters and story but this time it focused a bit less on the mysteries. It felt like the detectives and their helper Mr Polopetsi knew what was going on but I felt like the reader was left out at times. It's still a wonderfully well-written, engaging and at times humorous read and I love the characters but I guess the mystery aspect could have been better.