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Title: Treading water
Review: I read the first volume of the "No 1 Ladies Detective Agency" and now volume 3. By comparison, vol 3 dwells too much on the personal lives of Mma Ramotswe and her husband to be. These parts of the book are uninteresting and did not engage me much. On the other hand, very little detecting is done in this book. The main character really handles only one case, and while in the first volume this was where her earthy wisdom shone through, here her advice is not as convincing, as if she has her mind on other things.On the other hand, the minor characters in this book are delightful. It was good to see the assistent come into her own, and the mechanic apprentices insert a much needed comic note into the story.In all, this book feels like the author is treading water, not sure where to take his characters. He is shifting from the series-of-vignettes to a more long form novel, but the result is not convincing. Yet.
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