The book

I neglected to say that the hours passed pleasantly with The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe to read while Frida slept in my lap. The mysteries to be solved in this newest installment of the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency were more focused on relationships and navigating loyalties that ran across family, business, and friendship. Even the one actual client's problem was one of relationships-- a bad marriage. Several characters had grandiose ideas about their own talents and prospects but in the end they all came to a satisfactory understanding of how they could find a niche in the working world that they would enjoy. There was more internal musing, too, from several characters, to comical effect. Missing from the ending of the novel was the poem comprised of the word "Africa" repeated. Instead the married couple who are the anchor of all the other characters simply held hands in the garden, looking at their growing plants. I have enjoyed every one of the novels in this series. I find them light and airy but with good writing and creative problem solving.