Excerpt from The Kalahari Typing School For Men by Alexander McCall Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

During Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's illness they had moved the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency into the back office at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. It had proved to be a successful arrangement: the affairs of the garage could be easily supervised from the back of the building, and there was a separate entrance for agency clients. Each business benefited in other ways. Those who brought their cars in for repair sometimes realised that there was a matter which might benefit from investigation--an errant husband, for example, or a missing relative--while others who came with a matter for the agency would arrange at the same time for their cars to be serviced or their brakes to be checked.

Excerpted from The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith Copyright© 2003 by Alexander McCall Smith. Excerpted by permission of Pantheon, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.