<P> Mma Precious Ramotswe is the main character in a series including 18 novels from 1998 to 2017 . The country of Botswana is in a sense a character as well, as it is a crucial aspect of how the stories flow and the problems which face her clients . Mma Ramotswe starts up her detective agency when she is 34 years old, using the inheritance from her father to move to the capital city Gaborone to buy a house for herself and find an office for her new business . She feels a detective needs to know about people more than anything, to solve problems for them . Her story is told in the first novel from birth to opening the detective agency . </P> <P> Mma Ramotswe is a Motswana woman who is the protagonist in the series and the main detective . Mma is a Setswana term of respect for a woman; the equivalent term for a man is Rra . </P> <P> Mma Precious Ramotswe solves cases for wives whose husbands have gone missing, for a school teacher whose son has disappeared by finding the kidnappers, for a wealthy father whose 16 - year - old daughter is frustrating him by going out on her own . She helps a man atone for sins of his youth by finding the people he hurt decades earlier . She uncovers a scheme by twin brothers to use one medical degree and certificate between the two of them . She solves a case for herself, when she thinks she must seek a divorce from her first husband, but learns differently when she seeks out his mother . Her personal life has a main sorrow, that her only child lived just a few days, as the child's father beat her during the pregnancy, a story told in retrospect . This led her to decide never to marry again after he left her . Her joy is her engagement and eventual marriage to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who has taken on foster care of a sister and brother from the orphan farm . The cases are set in the cities of Botswana, mainly on the edge of the Kalahari desert, rather than in the desert . There are occasional forays into neighbouring nations . </P> <P> After her first few cases, she purchases a book by Clovis Andersen on detection, The Principles of Private Detection, and then quotes from it throughout the novels when a guide is needed for deciding next steps . </P>

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