A Song Of Comfortable Chairs (The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series) by Alexander McCall Smith

About the book: 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 do not 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.

In A Song of Comfortable Chairs (2022) - the twenty-third instalment in the delightful 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.

About the author: Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as ‘Sandy’, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the highly successful The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the von Igelfeld series and the new Detective Varg novels. He also writes stand-alone novels, children's fiction and libretti for short operas.

Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds thirteen honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America.  He is Professor Emeritus of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In 2007, he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country.  In 2015, he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017, The National Arts Club (of America) Medal of Honour for Achievement in Literature. In 2020, he received the honorary fellowship of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. In 2021, he received the coveted Edinburgh Awards, chosen by the people and cross-party politicians of Edinburgh. And in 2022 he received the Lifetime Achievement in the Saltire Literary Awards for contribution to the Arts at the Scottish Book Awards.

Rating: 5/5