Skip to content

'A Song of Comfortable Chairs' by Alexander McCall Smith: Book Review

A Song of Comfortable Chairs

AUTHOR Alexander McCall Smith
PUBLISHER Penguin Random House
GENRE Mystery, Fiction
RELEASE DATE September 6, 2022
ISBN 978-1039004382

Penguin Random House
Penguin Random House

This month’s choice is just what we all need, I reckon, now that September is here with the days getting shorter and work and studies once more becoming onerous - not to mention any inevitable commuting. 

A Song of Comfortable Chairs is the 23rd book about the trials and triumphs of Botswana’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  You don’t need to have read any of the previous 22, although, like any series, some knowledge of previous events in the life of this ‘traditionally built’ lady detective and her assistant can make it easier to settle into a story that possesses all the cosiness of your own, very comfortable armchair.

A new company in Gaberone’s office furniture market is undercutting prices, offering doubtful incentives and generally behaving unprofessionally towards Phuti Radiphuti’s well-established company.  His company has always been known not so much for the latest fashion in office furniture as for its very comfortable chairs, which are especially suited to those of ‘traditional build’.  Unfortunately for the interloping company, Phuti is also married to the agency’s assistant detective, and word soon spreads about his company’s sudden loss of sales. Adding to their business problems are the couple’s efforts to reach out and help the troubled son of an old friend.

What to do?  

Much of the charm of these engaging books, and especially this one, is the way in which possible solutions are considered and even arrived at by Mma Precious Ramotswe, the No. 1 lady detective herself. Sometimes alone or with the help of her assistant and always aided by a cup of traditional Rooibos tea, Mma Ramotswe mulls over solutions, considering them not only in light of their legality but her personal philosophy.  No student of law, or philosophy for that matter, can better lay out a complicated argument as well as its pitfalls – not surprising considering the author’s own legal background.

Will Phuti’s own campaign against ruin prove successful, thanks to Mma Ramotswe’s ideas? Will her legendary patience and the determination of the good friend who runs a local orphanage be enough for the Radiphutis to help the troubled boy?  In this captivating story, former apprentice, now fully-fledged car mechanic Charlie also has a starring role. Author Alexander McCall Smith is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors, who has written and contributed to more than 100 books, including specialist academic titles, a gently satirical series set in Edinburgh, short story collections, and a number of popular children’s books. His first book, The White Hippo, a children’s book, was published by Hamish Hamilton in 1980.  His new children’s series, The School Ship Tobermory, is proving popular.

McCall Smith was born to British parents in 1948 in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).  After studying law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland he worked in universities in the UK and abroad, including many years in Botswana, where he co-founded the University of Botswana’s law school and taught law there. An amateur bassoonist, he has also co-founded The Really Terrible Orchestra and was one of the founders of Botswana's first centre for opera training called, inevitably perhaps, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House.


What's next?


Reader Feedback