‘Blue Shoes’ will bring you happiness

“Blue Shoes and Happiness”

by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon Books, 240 pages, $21.95)

Even the most devoted fans of Alexander McCall Smith must open his latest “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” book with some trepidation. After six satisfying novels in the series about Botswanan detective Precious Ramotswe, can he still delight with his explorations of the mysteries of the human heart?

Or has the Scottish writer (who closed Spokane’s Get Lit! literary festival last Sunday) fallen prey to a failing that Precious recognizes as she muses: “Some people never surprised one, thought Mma Ramotswe. They always behave in exactly the way one expects them to behave.”

But Mma Ramotswe’s legions of fans need have no fear. Yes, “Blue Shoes and Happiness” contains all the predictable elements: Mma Makutsi and her fiance, Puti Radiphuti, discover that the course of true love never did run smooth; some problems will be solved and others will remain intractable; and Precious will muse about the physical and spiritual beauties of the Botswana she loves.

But unlike some authors of serial fiction, (Mma Ramotswe would be too polite to name them, so we also shall refrain), McCall Smith understands that familiarity and even formula are no excuse for laziness.

That means that “Blue Shoes” throws a few new existential questions into the mix, most notably this one: Is it possible for a lady – Mma Ramotswe, for example – to be “too” traditionally built?

“Blue Shoes” has a few lapses, the most glaring one being that Precious’ adopted children, Motholeli and Puso, are mostly out of sight and out of mind, an odd development for someone as maternal as Mma Ramotswe.

And although Polopetsi, the new right-hand man at the garage, has a somewhat expanded role as an assistant at the detective agency, one could wish for a bit more character development for him and for Puti Radiphuti.

In the end, however, the reader remembers not the flaws but the enjoyment of having spent several pleasurable hours in the company of people who by now seem like old friends.

For, as Mma Ramotswe observed to Mma Makutsi about her blue shoes: “That’s the important thing, isn’t it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it?”