A chance meeting with the manager of The Great Hippopotamus Hotel leads the much-admired and traditionally-built Precious Ramotswe to investigate what is going wrong with this previously successful country hotel. Guests have been unwell, clothing has disappeared from the washing line, and scorpions have found their way into the guest bedrooms. Mma Ramotswe drives out to the hotel with her irrepressible colleague, Grace Makutsi (97 per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College). What they find there are family conflicts that only the investigators of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency will be able to resolve.

'As charming as ever... In these increasingly fractious and febrile times, we perhaps need Mma Ramotswe more than ever' Washington Post



'There is the same charm, the same acuteness, the same humour, the same generous understanding' Allan Massie, Scotsman