Showing results by author "Alexander Smith" in All Categories

The complete BBC Radio adaptations of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency featuring Botswana's only female private detective agency, run by the irrepressible Precious Ramotswe. Based on the hugely popular novels and brought to life with music and full casts, these evocative productions return us to Botswana, where Precious has more mysteries to solve.

It's never too late to make a change. Single and approaching middle age, Maeve Macdonald feels she has reached a point at which, if she doesn't do something drastic soon, life will have passed her by. And so, after 20 years of teaching, she gives up her career and leaves the only home she's ever known in search of adventure. As she prepares for this exciting new chapter in her life, travelling through South Asia, she finds that everything is going remarkably well.

Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori Montagna, who is suffering from an acute identity crisis, wants to know more about her own past, and after doing a DNA test, she discovers that she has a relative she didn't know about. But her newfound family causes a bit of a rift between her and her flatmate, Antonia Collie. Bertie's dream of moving to the promised land – the Dear Green Place – comes crashing down as he learns that he is to move to the far northeast – Peterhead, near Aberdeen, leaving poor Ranald Braveheart Macpherson a little heartbroken and lost.

The story revolves around the comings and goings at No. 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in Edinburgh. Immediately recognisable are the Edinburgh chartered surveyor, stalwart of the Conservative Association, who dreams of membership of Scotland's most exclusive golf club. We have the pushy Stockbridge mother, and her prodigiously talented five-year-old son, who is making good progress with the saxophone and with his Italian.

In Espresso Tales, Alexander McCall Smith returns home to Edinburgh and the glorious cast of his own tales of the city, the residents of 44 Scotland Street, with a new set of challenges for each one of them. Bruce, the intolerably vain and perpetually deluded ex-surveyor, is about to embark on a new career as a wine merchant, while his long-suffering flatmate Pat MacGregor, set up by matchmaking Domenica Macdonald, finds herself invited to a nudist picnic in Moray Place in the pursuit of true love.

'I am a fortunate woman to have such an eventful life', observes Mma Ramotswe. Perhaps, but there are times when rather too much seems to be happening. This latest despatch from Botswana is certainly full of events, even if it starts with a leisurely trip to buy a pair of shoes for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. As often happens, one thing leads to another, and we are soon caught up in an ill-thought-out plan hatched by Charlie, junior mechanic and trainee detective. Charlie has met up with two rising stars of the local musical world – jazz players known as Lion and Leopard.

The delightful 17th installment of the ever-popular, perennially best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. For years Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi - codirectors of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - have been helping people with the problems in their lives, but their partnership is tested by a curious case: a client who wants to rediscover the life she lost when she left Botswana 30 years ago.

In the latest book in the widely beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Precious Ramotswe takes on a case for a childhood acquaintance, but her inquiries will require an even more delicate touch than usual. Mma Ramotswe reconnects with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate proposition.

The latest instalment of the beloved and best-selling series - as endearing and delectable as ever! Business is slow at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, so at Mma Makutsi’s suggestion, Mma Ramotswe is persuaded to take her first-ever holiday. But just as she’s about to depart, a new client arrives: a young woman whose father was considered a hero in Botswana but whose reputation is now being called into question.

Mma Ramotswe knows she is very lucky indeed. She has a loving family, good friends and a thriving business doing what she enjoys most - helping people. But the latest mystery she is called upon to solve is distinctly trickier than it initially appears, and, of course, there's plenty to handle in her personal life between Charlie and his new bride and Mma Makutsi and her talking shoes. In the end, Mma Ramotswe's patience and common sense will win out, and, without a doubt, all will be the better for it.

The complete BBC radio adaptations of Alexander McCall's bestselling series. Inspired by Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, 44 Scotland Street started life as a serial in The Scotsman. It was a huge hit, and was soon novelised, adapted on stage and dramatised for BBC Radio 4. Collected here are all five radio series, in which we follow the interconnected lives of the residents of adjoining flats in a tenement in Edinburgh's Georgian New Town.

Following on from the brilliant The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe charts the further adventures of Mma Ramotswe, Botswana's only female private detective. It's going to take all her intuition and eminent sensibility for Mma Ramotswe to crack her hardest case yet: the decade-old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari.

In this latest movement in the symphony of her life, Isabel is faced with novel challenges, each of which tests her resolution to do the right thing. Dawn, a nurse in an infectious diseases ward, is let down by her lover and needs a place to live. And then there is the pompous and slippery Professor Robert Lettuce. He is planning a prestigious conference, but look at the budget: why is there such a large payment for Lettuce himself and for a young female assistant?

To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose; it is summer in Scotland Street (as it always is) and for the habitués of Edinburgh's favourite street some extraordinary adventures lie in waiting. For the impossibly vain Bruce Anderson - he of the clove-scented hair gel - it may finally be time to settle down, and surely it can only be a question of picking the lucky winner from the hordes of his admirers....

Life is never dull for Botswana's premier lady detective, Precious Ramotswe. As a particularly delicate situation is brought to her attention, she must, with the help of her loyal associate Grace Matsuki, set out to investigate the peculiar circumstances surrounding the case. Over the course of their inquiries, unexpected information continues coming to light, leaving the pair puzzled. Eventually, Mma Ramotswe will realise that the truth, as ever, is more complicated than it first seems.

If he's in the right mood, divine Angus might grant you sight of your true love in a dream; you might even fall in love with him, but he'll never love you back. He's too busy making mischief, stealing the palace of the gods from his father, turning his enemies into pigs etc ; until he is trapped...

The latest instalment of the irresistibly charming, perennially best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Precious Ramotswe has always idolised her father, the late Obed Ramotswe. She feels that she knows all about his life - but does she? Sometimes our parents surprise us, and we discover that things were not quite what we thought them to be.

Unusual requests are commonplace at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, but so are very ordinary ones, such as a plea for money: when a distant cousin calls on Mma Ramotswe to ask for help with another relative's hip operation, tricky questions arise in regard to family responsibility. Mma Makutsi and Mr J. L. B Matekoni are far from convinced of the merits of the request, but it is hard for Mma Ramotswe, with a heart her size, to turn people away.

Mysteries of love, romance and truth-telling lie at the heart of Isabel Dalhousie's concerns in Alexander McCall Smith's new Sunday Philosopher's Club novel. Isabel's niece Cat is still worshipped by the young musician, Jamie, but Cat has a new and unsuitable love-interest. Meanwhile Isabel's...

If only Pat Macgregor had an inkling of the embarrassment - romantic, professional, even aesthetic - that flowed from accepting narcissistic ex-boyfriend Bruce Anderson's invitation for coffee, she would never have said yes. And if only Matthew, her boss at the art gallery, hadn't wandered into his local bookshop and picked up a particular book at a particular time, he would never have knocked over his former English teacher or attracted the attentions of the police.