Review: The Colours of All the Cattle
Gaby Meares
I cannot pretend to be anything other than a McCall Smith tragic. I love his gentle take on life, and always feel refreshed on finishing one of his many novels.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is very close to my heart, and as this is the 19th instalment, all the characters are now like close friends.
The Colours of all the Cattle does not disappoint. It has all the essential ingredients to make an utterly wonderful escape to Botswana.
Mma Ramotswe is convinced by her friends to stand for local government, which leads to much ruminating on the often bad behaviour of politicians and those in power - rather pertinent in the current state of world politics.
As always, however, the common thread throughout this latest novel is the important of kindness:
"[Mma Ramotswe] sighed. If only people….could remember that the people they met during the day had all the same hopes and fears that they had, then there would be so much less conflict and disagreement in this world. If only people remembered that, then they would be kinder to others - and kindness, Mma Ramotswe believed, was the most important thing there was."
Wise words indeed.