5 minutes With...ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

His No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series has a new instalment

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You're back with a new book from No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency about a string of unfortunate events that happen at a Botswana hotel. Why are the novels so popular?

The heroine of that series is a woman who is kind, understanding and intuitive. There is no crime in those books Mma Ramotswe is, rather, a person who helps others with the issues in their lives. I think that people like her - as do !! The world is such a difficult and often rather sorrowful place - Mma Ramotswe represents the opposite of the confrontational attitudes we see all about us. I think people want that. They want some gentleness and a certain optimism.

Humanity and hope seem to be recurring themes for you. Why?