Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander Mccall Smith

The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander Mccall Smith

The Double Comfort Safari Club

The New No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel

by Alexander Mccall Smith

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2010, 224 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

The delightful new installment in Alexander McCall Smith's beloved and best-selling series finds Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi traveling to the north of Botswana, to the stunning Okavango Delta, to visit a safari lodge where there have been several unexplained and troubling events – including the demise of one of the guests.

When the two ladies of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency arrive at the Okavango Delta, their eyes are opened, as if for the first time, to the natural beauty of their homeland. With teeming wildlife, endless grasslands, and sparkling rivulets of water running in every direction, it is breathtaking.

But they can't help being drawn into a world filled with other wildlife: rival safari operators, discontented guides, grumpy hippopotamuses. On top of that, the date has still not been set for Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti's wedding, and it’s safe to say that Mma Makutsi is beginning to grow a bit impatient. And to top it all off, the impossible has happened: one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's apprentices has gotten married ... Of course none of this defeats the indomitable Precious Ramotswe. Good sense, kindness, and copious quantities of red bush tea carry the day. As they always do.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. The resolution ... might strike some as unduly fortuitous, but it makes sense within the framework of these books, which are more about humanity than logic." - Publishers Weekly

"All these problems are solved with Mma Ramotswe's customary grace and wisdom..." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. Even after nearly a dozen installments, McCall Smith manages to keep his series engaging and fresh." - Booklist

This information about The Double Comfort Safari Club was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Cloggie Downunder

a pleasure to read
The Double Comfort Safari Club is the 11th in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of the best detective agency in Botswana, is kept busy with fraudulent fiancées, adulterous (or not) part-time reverends, jealous aunties and American legacies. Grace Makutsi’s well-ordered life is thrown into disarray when her fiancé, Phuti Radiphuti, suffers a nasty accident; Violet Sephotho is up to new tricks that show her true colours; Precious has to mediate for a couple suspicious of each other; and Grace and Precious make a trip to Maun and the Okavango Delta to track down the recipient of a legacy from an American tourist. Precious bravely takes several canoe trips. As always, throughout, we are treated to the wisdom of Obed Ramotswe, Clovis Anderson, Grace Makutsi’s footwear and Precious herself. We learn why Batswana always speak of their dead as “late”, what Precious (and McCall Smith) think of Consultants, and more about the Old Botswana Morality and kindness. Delightful chapter headings, wonderful characters, charming and poignant. A pleasure to read.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Alexander Mccall Smith Author Biography

Alexander McCall Smith began the now highly successful 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series in 1996, after being inspired by the sight of a 'traditionally built' Botswanan lady chasing down a chicken for a meal. The first book in the series - 'The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency' was published in the UK in 1998 but didn't arrive in the USA until 2001.

Known to his friends as Sandy, McCall Smith describes the Botswanans as 'genuinely courteous people' He knows Botswana well as he grew up there and also spent several years on the law faculty of the University of Botswana; his volume on the legal system of Botswana (The Criminal Law of Botswana) remains the definitive and in fact, only book on the subject.

In 2004 he published the first in a...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Alexander Mccall Smith's Website

Other books by Alexander Mccall Smith at BookBrowse

37 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more mysteries...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.