Blue shoes and happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

Mma Ramotswe sat out under the hot Botswanan sun drinking a cup of red bush tea. She picked up the paper and started chuckling at the new advice column, Aunty Emang. At her age there were some things you just knew. There were the difficult problems, such as why a wheel was round, and the trivial, such as where her husband, Mr JLB Matekoni, had left his toothbrush.

And it was in these very trivial problems that the only begetter of the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency specialised. "Men are weak," Mma Ramotswe mused. Her assistant, Mma Makutsi, sensed another profound insight was imminent. "Mr JLB Matekoni's weakness is cake."

This was indeed interesting and worthy of another cup of tea. Mma Makutsi went to the kitchen where she encountered Mr JLB Maketoni."Sometimes a football team wins," he said. "And sometimes it loses."

This second piece of wisdom in as many minutes was interrupted by a shout. "There's a cobra in my office," cried Mma Ramotswe.

Just then Mr Whitson, one of Mr JLB Matekoni's customers, rushed in and grabbed the snake. "You're safe now," he said. "By the way, I wonder if you can help. All the local people near the game reserve are acting strangely."

It sounded like witchcraft to Mma Ramotswe, but she decided to say nothing as a distressed young woman, wearing an apron covered in food, entered the room. "I would guess that you are a cook," said Mma Ramotswe. "You are truly gifted with second sight," the girl answered. "I am at my wit's end. Mma Tsau is giving away free food to her husband and she thinks I am blackmailing her about it."

Mma Ramotswe drank her tea and smiled kindly. "Leave it to me." Mma Makutsi was very disturbed.

Her fiance, Phuti Radiphuti, had fallen silent when she had declared herself to be a feminist.

"You must cook him a meal to reassure him," Mma Ramotswe insisted. Mma Makutsi followed this excellent advice to the letter, but Phuti failed to arrive. "Oh what shall I do?" she cried. "You must go and talk to him," said Mma Ramotswe.

"Oh thank God, you're here," said Phuti. "I was unexpectedly called away and I was worried you might think I did not want to marry you anymore." Mma Ramotswe sighed with the release of such unbearable tension.

A nurse darted into the office. "There's something strange about the Ugandan doctor," she said. "He's giving the wrong blood pressure pills."

Mma Ramotswe noted down the details before accompanying Mma Makutsi to buy some new shoes. "They look a little small."

Mr Polopetsi had grown concerned that Mma Ramotswe had made no attempt to solve any of her cases, so he drove to Mr Whitson's game reserve.

"The locals were superstitious about the hornbill," he said later.

"Sadly, it's now a late hornbill as you put it in a box," Mma Ramotswe observed tartly. "And by the way, Aunty Emang was responsible for Mma Tsau's and the Ugandan doctor's troubles."

Mma Makutsi grinned. Mma Ramotswe had saved the day again. "Time for tea," said Mma Ramotswe.

Blood Hunt by Iain Rankin

It begins with a phone call. Gordon Reeve's brother has been found dead
in his car in San Diego - the car was locked from the inside, a gun in
his hand. In the US to identify the body Gordon comes to realise that
his brother has in fact been murdered. What's more, it is soon obvious
that his own life is in danger. Once back in Scotland he finds out that
there have been more visitors than usual to his house and his home has
been bugged by professionals. But Reeve is a professional too. Ex-SAS,
he was half of a two-man unit with someone he came to fear, then to
hate. It looks like his Nemesis is back.

Overall it is an easy read. The action flows quite easily and you do not need to think too much.

A Question of Blood by Iain Rankin

Inspector Rebus he is called upon to solve a school shooting that has left three dead and one wounded. At the same time he becomes the prime suspect in the grizzly death of a lowlife criminal named Martin Fairstone, who was harassing his partner, Siobhan Clark.

One night, Rebus goes pub-crawling to find Fairstone with the intention of setting him straight about staying away from Siobhan. But, as does happen in life, the two get smashingly drunk and Fairstone invites Rebus home for a nightcap. They are going to bury the hatchet, and as far as the DI is concerned, that was all there was to the meeting. He leaves, hails a cab and falls asleep until he reaches home when he realizes that … "he'd done it again. Ended up drinking too much … [the]
driver had to wake him up. Rebus [remembered] running a bath … world tilting in the darkness, shifting on its axis, pitching him forwards so his head thumped against the rim of the [tub] … waking on his knees, hands hanging over the side of the bath" having turned on only the hot water tap. "His hands were scalded by the rising water … Scalded."

At that moment he has no idea that Martin Fairstone burned to death in a grease fire a short time after Rebus left. When word gets out that Rebus is in the hospital with burns on his hands (he insists he is scalded), his superiors start to ask uncomfortable questions. He is called on the carpet and put on suspension, despite his vehement denials of any involvement in the fire. But Rebus has a fine reputation as an investigator and is requested by the DI who is working on the school shootings.

Thus, he is also allowed to be an unofficial, ad-hoc member of the team with Siobhan as his driver/assistant/partner. Once he is on the scene he is devastated to learn that one of the dead boys is the son of his cousin, a man he hasn't seen in decades. Rebus "had been thinking about families: not just his own …" but of so many people he knew --- how we lose touch, how "life" interferes, how Rebus himself replaced his family with co-workers who became close friends "producing ties that oftentimes seemed stronger than blood."