September 2025

In the Time of Five Pumpkins is the 26th novel in the globally beloved No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which is being published in the UK on 4th September. In this latest visit to The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency we are reassured that no matter how unhappy the world may be, there is always an oasis of courtesy and peace in that special place in southern Africa.

In the Time of Five Pumpkins

It was a long time since Grace Makutsi had first been employed as secretary of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a business once described in the local paper as ‘the answer to the problems of those who have problems’. She had more or less appointed herself to that position when, all those years ago, Mma Ramotswe, the agency’s only begetter, had announced its opening. Mma Ramotswe had not originally envisaged having a secretary – how was a small business to pay such a person? – but she had not had the heart to turn her away.

For Mma Makutsi had been insistent. ‘It is most important, Mma Ramotswe,’ she said, leaning forward to emphasise her point, ‘for a future-looking business to have a professional secretary.’ She paused before concluding, ‘Like me – for instance.’

Mma Ramotswe was not sure whether her business would be future-looking: she entertained only modest ambitions for it, and the way Mma Makutsi was talking made her wonder whether this rather pushy secretary might not be better looking for a position with a diamond-mining company. They had grand offices, those people – quite unlike the single room of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which made no statement, even if its view was worth a thousand words: the acacia trees, so popular with Cape doves; the Botswana sky; the winding, dusty paths through the bush…

‘Well…’ she began, but got no further before she was interrupted.

‘If you do not have a secretary,’ Mma Makutsi warned, ‘people will have no confidence in you. A business without a secretary?’ She shook her head. ‘That cannot be much good – that is what people will say, Mma – they will all say that.’

‘Well, Mma…’

‘I am especially interested in filing. It is very important to have a good filing system.’

Mma Ramotswe sighed. ‘Mma,’ she said, ‘there is not much money. This business is only starting. We have no clients yet, I’m afraid. We may never get any – who knows?’ She knows she sounds defeatist, but more than one person had warned her that many new businesses failed to survive beyond a few months.

Mma Makutsi had hesitated, but only briefly. Then she said, ‘That does not matter, Mma. You can pay me when the fees start to come in.’

Mma Ramotswe sighed again, and then, not really knowing why she did so, agreed. There could be no mistaking Mma Makutsi’s motivation: somebody who was prepared to work on a speculative basis was bound to be a keen and conscientious employee. And so it was that Mma Makutsi, graduate summa cum laude of the Botswana Secretarial Collece – with ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations – embarked on her career with the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. ‘It was the best thing I ever did in my life,’ she said, but then immediately qualified her statement. ‘The best thing after I decided to study at the Botswana Secretarial College, that is.’

Mma Ramotswe nodded. ‘That was a very good move, Mma. A higher education stays with you for the rest of your days.’

‘You’re right,’ agreed Mma Makutsi. She looked at Mma Ramotswe, a certain sympathy in her expression. ‘I’m sure you would have done very well yourself, Mma, if you had been given the opportunity.’

Mma Ramotswe had left schools in her mid-teens. She had done well as Mochudi High School, but there were fewer options those days, and her formal education had ended then. She would have liked to have gone on to further study – it was one of the regrets of her life that she had not done so – but she had been given a good start by her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, who had patiently taught her so much about the world around her, as a good parent should do. He had taken her on long walks into the bush outside the village, or out at the cattle post, and had introduced her to the complexities of the natural world. He had taught her the Setswana names of the plants they came across – and their traditional use – knowledge that was fast fading in Gaborone and other towns. Words were dying, quietly and unlamented, through lack of use on the lips of younger people; it seemed, at times, that only the old remembered, and as they in due course became silent, whole lexicons of vocabulary were heard no more.

He had instructed her, too, on the ways of the San people, who could survive even in the harshest conditions of the Kalahari – priceless, ancient knowledge that he had acquired from a man of that origin whom he had known and who was a tracker with the wildlife department. All of that she learned, along with so much else about the country in which they lived – its sayings, its story, the habits of its people. He was proud of such things, and he had made her feel proud too. ‘We are fortunate,’ he said, ‘to be who we are – to have been born in this peaceful country, with all that has been given to us.’ And it was true: they had been given so much. God, as Obed Ramotswe had once said, was even-handed in his treatment of peoples, but even He could not help himself from particularly favouring Botswana.

She had never forgotten any of these lessons, and in rememvering them she felt that she was keeping alive the memory of a man who stood for all that she admired in her country and its culture.

Now, as Mma Makutsi made this reference to the difference in their educational opportunities, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself of what she had learned from her father and of what she had picked up simply by being an engaged citizen. You could learn most things, she thought, by simply keeping your eyes open and listening. That’s where most people fell down – they would not listen. We spend a lot of time shouting at one another, Mma Ramotswe once observed. If we spent a fraction of that shouting time on listening, we would do far better. There would be fewer ways, she thought – and fewer tears.

Her train of thought was interrupted by Mma Makutsi’s continuing observations.

‘I have been very happy working here in the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,’ she said. ‘It has been my calling.’

___________________________________________________

In the Time of Five Pumpkins is published by Little, Brown on 4th September.