''Tea Time for the Traditionally Built'', published in 2009, is the tenth in '' The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'' series of novels by

Alexander McCall Smith Sir Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith (born 24 August 1948) is a Scottish legal scholar and author of fiction. He was raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became an ...

, set in

Gaborone Gaborone ( , , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Botswana, largest city of Botswana, with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its metropolitan area is home to 534, ...

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

, and featuring the Motswana protagonist

Precious Ramotswe Precious may refer to: Music * Precious (group), a British female pop group Albums * ''Precious'' (Chanté Moore album), 1992 * ''Precious'' (Conrad Sewell album), 2023 * ''Precious'' (Cubic U album), 1998 * ''Precious'' (Ours album), 200 ...

Plot summary

Mma Ramotswe and her assistant Mma Makutsi agree that there are things that men know and ladies do not, and vice versa. The glamorous Violet Sephotho sets her sights on Mma Makutsi's unsuspecting fiancé and it becomes clear that some men do not know how to recognise a ruthless

Jezebel Jezebel ()"Jezebel"
(US) and

even when she is bouncing up and down on the best bed in the Double Comfort Furniture Shop. In her attempt to foster understanding between the sexes and find the traitor on Mr Football's team, Mma Ramotswe ventures into new territory, with the help of an observant small boy.

Cases

Mma Ramotswe's newest client is the big-shot owner of the ailing football club, the Kalahari Swoopers, but the lady detectives know very little about football.

Subplots

Mma Ramotswe's old white van is dying. She is not ready to give up on it. JLB gets her a new, but boring, van and as grateful as she is, she sets out to find her old van. But to make this complicated her van was stolen from the buyer, making it harder to find.

Themes

This novel is concerned with themes of loyalty, relations between the sexes and often the need to dig deep to uncover the goodness of the human heart.

References

2009 British novels The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Little, Brown and Company books {{2000s-mystery-novel-stub