For a country as little known in the US as Botswana, it is impressive that there are now 15 novels written in English about the country. I refer to the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, a series by the British author Alexander McCall Smith. It features Mma. Precious Ramotswe, an entrepreneurial minded woman who sets up a series of businesses in Gabarone, beginning with her own private eye agency. She has a series of cleverly laid out adventures, and the Handsome Man's DeLuxe Cafe is the most recent of them, published in 2015.

By reading the novels (they've also been adapted for film - not so good), we have gotten some flavor for daily life in Botswana. I'm always cautious, however, when a Westerner takes on the job of characterizing another society. So I started to look up native writers, and it turns out that there are a good number of Batswana novelists. The most prominent among them is D.P. Semakaleng Monyaise, whose masterwork Go Sa Baori was published in 1999.

Unfortunately for me, all of his work is written in Setswana, and as far as I can tell none of it has been translated into English. So for now, the First Ladies Detective Agency is the best we can do. I'll let you know how realistic it seems once we get there.