Oh it is a joy to have another new reader for The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Lisett Lecat read 20 of the books and she was terrific. I listened to 13 of them but read the first 8 or 9 in the print version. So over the years (since 1998) I’ve the whole serie – and in order, too. But I suppose all good things have to come to an end.  Unfortunately, the first reader selected to take her place wasn’t quite up to what the listeners had got used to and there were lots of complaints.

The Joy and Light Bus Company
by Alexander McCall Smith 
2021 (238 pages )
Read by Bianca Amato 8h 8m  Rating: A++/ very cozy series (Book #22 in The No. 1  Ladies Detective Agency series)

But Bianca Amato does a lovely job and I’m going to mention that on the Audible site.  (YAY) She got Mma Precious Ramotswe as being generally both smart and loving using common sense, while Mma Grace Makutsi, Ramatswe’s assistant and althoough she tries to learn different ways, she still comes off as a bossy know-it-all which an be hurtful to some. Amato’s characters are fairly easy to distinguish.
 
The action takes place in Gaborone, medium-sized capital city of Botswana on the northern border of South Africa. Botswana which has a stable government and does pretty well in the world.  It has had problems like AIDS, but crime and poverty have been decreasing lately.  

In this book, as usual, (and I firmly recommend these books be read in order as the over-arching plot line is almost the point) there are several plot threads:    

1.The main plot thread in his book is how J. L. B. Matekoni, husband of Precious, can grow his business. His business, Speedy Motors, is older but doing fine, so basically he’s satisfied, maybe just bored.  And at a conference about growing businesses,  he meets someone who wants him to go partners in the latter’s new bus company. That would mean getting a large loan from a bank. Precious is not happy about this. 

2. There is a small girl wandering around who looks like she’s being sadly neglected if not abused in some way. The child is taken to stay with the activist-foster mother of the town who is a good friend of Mma Ramotswe.  

 and 4. A new client of the detective agency has some complicated family/money troubles with a wealthy and aging father, a caregiver, two or three sisters and so on.  
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