Item category 1: Crime Paperback

'The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency' introduced the engaging and sassy owner of Botswana's only detective agency, Precious Ramotswe. This novel finds her expanding her business to take in the world of car repair and a beauty pageant.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is one woman, Precious Ramotswe, working out of a breezeblock office in Botswana. A cross between Kinsey Millhone and Miss Marple, Precious makes an unlikely heroine as she embarks on a very African mystery.

Detective Inspector Jack Frost, officially on duty, is nevertheless determined to sneak off to a colleague's leaving party. But first the corpse of a local junkie is found in a public lavatory, and when Frost tries to join the revels later on, the daughter of a wealthy businessman goes missing.

Every year, at Halloween, high on the Cornish cliffs, a life-sized effigy of a man is strapped to a blazing wheel and run into the sea. As Chief Superintendent Wycliffe begins to investigate a disappearance, he is left with an incredible, and seemingly impossible, solution.

Her white face stared blankly back at him. He fancied that she had cringed, her slim body pressing further into the wall behind her. There had been only one thing he had ever been able to do to women and, advancing now, smiling, he did it.

Mma Ramotswe, who became engaged to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni at the end of the first book in this series, is still engaged. She wonders when a day for the wedding will be named, but she is anxious to avoid putting too much pressure on her fiancé. For indeed he has other things on his mind.

It was Sir Charles's mysterious death in the grounds of Baskerville Hall that brought Sherlock Holmes to the scene of one of his most famous and intriguing cases.

In the fourth book in the 'No 1 Ladies Detective Agency' series Precious Ramotswe faces a new challenge: competition. 'Ex-CID, Ex-New York and Ex-cellent', Cephas Buthelezi certainly talks the talk, but how would he deal with her current case - a man who has been attacked by ostrich rustlers?

One after the other, half a dozen monks are found murdered in the most bizarre of ways. A learned Franciscan who is sent to solve the mysteries finds himself involved in the frightening events.