Written by Anna Marshall Foreword by Alexander McCall Smith   Alexander McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series is the world’s longest running serial novel. Readers all over the world delight in his amusing characters and descriptions of the city of Edinburgh. With The 44 Scotland Street Cookbook fans can now immerse themselves in the world of Edinburgh’s […]

For fans of Alexander McCall Smith’s many beloved series and romantic standalone novels, The Perfect Passion Company e-original series shows him at his most perceptive, playful, and generous. A Laborer in the Vineyard of Love is the second episode in this series of shorts. Katie Donald is learning the ropes at the Perfect Passion Company, […]

The latest installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s delightfully diverting  No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, in which all of Mma Ramotswe’s tact, affability, and good sense will be required to disentangle a delicate dispute.   This latest installment of the beloved No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series finds Botswana’s premier detective agency as busy as […]

The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf is the hilarious fourth novel in the best-selling Detective Varg series. This time, Ulf Varg will need to resolve both a sensitive crime and his own delicate dilemma in the hopes of preserving the peace. The Department of Sensitive Crimes is downsizing in light of a recent downturn […]

From the beloved author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series comes a new short story collection: half stories of spies, half tales of revenge, all highlighting the kinder, funnier, and gentler side of espionage and retribution.In this dual collection of short stories, Alexander McCall Smith brings his trademark humor and warmth to inventive […]

The Enigma of Garlic is the 16th book in the 44 Scotland Street series The Enigma of Garlic – the latest installment in the charming and congenial 44 Scotland Street series finds all our favorite residents of Scotland’s most celebrated address up to their usual hilarious hijinks. It’s the most anticipated event of the decade – Big […]

The Perfect Passion Company is a novel written in installments, published as three individual e-Book shorts in the first instance and then gathered into print publication in 2024. Available now as an instant purchase. *** ‘Be careful… dates don’t always work out’ *** In an antidote to online dating, Alexander has created the fictional world of The […]

Mma Ramotswe picked up the nurse’s uniform from her friend Sister Gogwe. It was a bit tight, especially round the arms, as Sister Gogwe, although generously proportioned, was slightly more slender than Mma Ramotswe. But once she was in it, and had pinned the nurse’s watch to her front, she was a perfect picture of a staff sister at the Princess Marina Hospital. It was a good disguise, she thought, and she made a mental note to use it at some time in the future.

As she drove to Happy Bapetsi’s house in her tiny white van, she reflected on how the African tradition of support for relatives could cripple people. She knew of one man, a sergeant of police, who was supporting an uncle, two aunts, and a second cousin. If you believed in the old Setswana morality, you couldn’t turn a relative away, and there was a lot to be said for that. But it did mean that charlatans and parasites had a very much easier time of it than they did elsewhere. They were the people who ruined the system, she thought. They’re the ones who are giving the old ways a bad name.

As she neared the house, she increased her speed. This was an errand of mercy, after all, and if the Daddy were sitting in his chair outside the front door he would have to see her arrive in a cloud of dust. The Daddy was there, of course, enjoying the morning sun, and he sat up straight in his chair as he saw the tiny white van sweep up to the gate. Mma Ramotswe turned off the engine and ran out of the car up to the house.

“Dumela Rra,” she greeted him rapidly. “Are you Happy Bapetsi’s Daddy?”

The Daddy rose to his feet. “Yes,” he said proudly. “I am the Daddy.”

Mma Ramotswe panted, as if trying to get her breath back. “I’m sorry to say that there has been an accident. Happy was run over and is very sick at the hospital. Even now they are performing a big operation on her.”

The Daddy let out a wail. “Aiee! My daughter! My little baby Happy!”

A good actor, thought Mma Ramotswe, unless … No, she preferred to trust Happy Bapetsi’s instinct. A girl should know her own Daddy even if she had not seen him since she was a baby.

“Yes,” she went on. “It is very sad. She is very sick, very sick. And they need lots of blood to make up for all the blood she’s lost.”

The Daddy frowned. “They must give her that blood. Lots of blood. I can pay.”

“It’s not the money,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Blood is free. We don’t have the right sort. We will have to get some from her family, and you are the only one she has. We must ask you for some blood.”

The Daddy sat down heavily.

“I am an old man,” he said.

Mma Ramotswe sensed that it would work. Yes, this man was an impostor.

“That is why we are asking you,” she said. “Because she needs so much blood, they will have to take about half your blood. And that is very dangerous for you. In fact, you might die.”

The Daddy’s mouth fell open.

“Die?”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But then you are her father and we know that you would do this thing for your daughter. Now could you come quickly, or it will be too late. Doctor Moghile is waiting.”

The Daddy opened his mouth, and then closed it.

“Come on,” said Mma Ramotswe, reaching down and taking his wrist. “I’ll help you to the van.”

The Daddy rose to his feet, and then tried to sit down again. Mma Ramotswe gave him a tug.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want to.”

“You must,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Now come on.”

The Daddy shook his head. “No,” he said faintly. “I won’t. You see, I’m not really her Daddy. There has been a mistake.”

He telephoned shortly before seven. Mma Ramotswe seemed pleased to hear from him and asked him, as was polite in the Setswana language, whether he had slept well. “I slept very well,” said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. “I dreamed all the night about that clever and beautiful woman who has agreed to marry me.”

He paused. If she was going to announce a change of mind, then this was the time that she might be expected to do it.

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I never remember what I dream,” she said. “But if I did, then I am sure that I would remember dreaming about that first-class mechanic who is going to be my husband one day.”

Mr J. L. B. Matekoni smiled with relief. She had not thought better of it, and they were still engaged.

“Today we must go to the President Hotel for lunch,” he said. “We shall have to celebrate this important matter.”

Mma Ramotswe agreed. She would be ready at twelve o’clock and afterwards, if it was convenient, perhaps he would allow her to visit his house to see what it was like. There would be two houses now, and they would have to choose one. Her house on Zebra Drive had many good qualities, but it was rather close to the centre of town and there was a case for being farther away. His house, near the old airfield, had a larger yard and was undoubtedly quieter, but was not far from the prison and was there not an overgrown graveyard nearby? That was a major factor; if she were alone in the house at night for any reason, it would not do to be too close to a graveyard. Not that Mma Ramotswe was superstitious; her theology was conventional and had little room for unquiet spirits and the like, and yet, and yet …

In Mma Ramotswe’s view there was God, Modimo, who lived in the sky, more or less directly above Africa. God was extremely understanding, particularly of people like herself, but to break his rules, as so many people did with complete disregard, was to invite retribution. When they died, good people, such as Mma Ramotswe’s father, Obed Ramotswe, were undoubtedly welcomed by God. The fate of the others was unclear, but they were sent to some terrible place—perhaps a bit like Nigeria, she thought—and when they acknowledged their wrongdoing they would be forgiven.

God had been kind to her, thought Mma Ramotswe. He had given her a happy childhood, even if her mother had been taken from her when she was a baby. She had been looked after by her father and her kind cousin and they had taught her what it was to give love—love which she had in turn given, over those few precious days, to her tiny baby. When the child’s battle for life had ended, she had briefly wondered why God had done this to her, but in time she had understood. Now his kindness to her was manifest again, this time in the appearance of Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, a good, kind man. God had sent her a husband.

They went downstairs. A small crowd of people had gathered round the door into the stalls and there was a buzz of conversation. As Isabel and Jennifer drew near, a woman turned to them and said: “Somebody fell from the gods. He’s in there.”

Isabel nodded. “We saw it happen,” she said. “We were up there.”

“You saw it?” said the woman. “You actually saw it?”

“We saw him coming down,’ said Jennifer. “We were in the grand circle. He came down past us.”

“How dreadful,” said the woman. “To see it … ”

“Yes.”

The woman looked at Isabel with that sudden human intimacy that the witnessing of tragedy permitted.

“I don’t know if we should be standing here,” Isabel muttered, half to Jennifer, half to the other woman. “We’ll just get in the way.”

The other woman drew back. “One wants to do something,” she said lamely.

“I do hope that he’s all right,” said Jennifer. “Falling all that way. He hit the edge of the circle, you know. It might have broken the fall a bit.”

No, thought Isabel, it would have made it worse perhaps; there would be two sets of injuries, the blow from the edge of the circle and injuries on the ground. She looked behind her; there was activity at the front door and then, against the wall, the flashing blue light of the ambulance outside.

“We must let them get through,” said Jennifer, moving away from the knot of people at the door. “The ambulance men will need to get in.”

They stood back as two men in loose green fatigues hurried past, carrying a folded stretcher. They were not long in coming out—less than a minute, it seemed—and then they went past, the young man laid out on the stretcher, his arms folded over his chest. Isabel turned away, anxious not to intrude, but she saw his face before she averted her gaze. She saw the halo of tousled dark hair and the fine features, undamaged. To be so beautiful, she thought, and now the end. She closed her eyes. She felt raw inside, empty. This poor young man, loved by somebody somewhere, whose world would end this evening, she thought, when the cruel news was broached. All that love invested in a future that would not materialise, ended in a second, in a fall from the gods.

It was settled. Pat had agreed to move in, and would pay rent from the following Monday. The room was not cheap, in spite of the musty smell (which Bruce pointed out was temporary) and the general dinginess of the décor (which Bruce had ignored). After all, as he pointed out to Pat, she was staying in the New Town, and the New Town was expensive whether you lived in a basement in East Claremont Street (barely New Town, Bruce said) or in a drawing-room flat in Heriot Row. And he should know, he said. He was a surveyor.

“You have found a job, haven’t you?” he asked tentatively. “The rent … ”

She assured him that she would pay in advance, and he relaxed. Anna had left rent unpaid and he and the rest of them had been obliged to make up the shortfall. But it was worth it to get rid of her, he thought.

He showed Pat to the door and gave her a key. “For you. Now you can bring your things over any time.” He paused. “I think you’re going to like this place.”

Pat smiled, and she continued to smile as she made her way down the stair. After the disaster of last year, staying put was exactly what she wanted. And Bruce seemed fine. In fact, he reminded her of a cousin who had also been keen on rugby and who used to take her to pubs on international nights with all his friends, who sang raucously and kissed her beerily on the cheek. Men like that were very unthreatening; they tended not to be moody, or brood, or make emotional demands—they just were. Not that she ever envisaged herself becoming emotionally involved with one of them. Her man—when she found him—would be …

“Very distressing! Very, very distressing!”

Pat looked up. She had reached the bottom of the stair and had opened the front door to find a middle-aged woman standing before her, rummaging through a voluminous handbag.

“It’s very distressing,” continued the woman, looking at Pat over half-moon spectacles. “This is the second time this month that I have come out without my outside key. There are two keys, you see. One to the flat and one to the outside door. And if I come out without my outside key, then I have to disturb one of the other residents to let me in, and I don’t like doing that. That’s why I’m so pleased to see you.”

“Well-timed,” said Pat, moving to let the woman in.

“Oh yes. But Bruce will usually let me in, or one of his friends … ” She paused. “Are you one of Bruce’s friends?”

“I’ve just met him.”

The woman nodded. “One never knows. He has so many girlfriends that I lose track of them. Just when I’ve got used to one, a quite different girl turns up. Some men are like that, you know.”

Pat said nothing. Perhaps wholesome, the word which she had previously alighted upon to describe Bruce, was not the right choice.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes is a Scandinavian Blanc novel. Scandinavian Blanc is different from Scandinavian Noir: there is nothing noir about the world of Ulf Varg, a detective in the Sensitive Crimes Department in the Swedish city of Malmo. Ulf is concerned with very odd, but not too threatening crimes – injuries to the back […]