At the beginning of In the Time of Five Pumpkins, Botswana is waiting for the rainy season to begin. The days are hot, the nights do not offer enough relief. People are on edge and prone to be short with each other. That tendency shows up in the novel’s first case, a husband who is worried that his wife is having an affair. That type of case is bread and butter for a private detective agency, but the man, Mr Excellence Modise, gets off on the wrong foot by presuming that Mma Makutsi is a secretary. She did train at the Botswana Secretarial College — and earned ninety-seven percent on her final exam — but she has long since having a role in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency with anything like a modest title. In fact, the first chapter contains another round of the long-running comedy in which Mma Makutsi gives herself another promotion in title, and Mma Ramotswe must take the change in stride. She also takes a moment to reflect on one of the most important reasons for her success.

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. (p. 4)

The two detectives do not shout at Mr Modise, but they come closer to it than probably either of them would like to admit. They do listen to him, but he is very full of himself, and he compounds that by making sweeping statements, often wrong. But Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe are professionals, and they agree to take his case, even if they decide afterward that they both have uneasy feelings about that man. Another brash man shows up soon in the story, this time in the company of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe’s husband. This is Mr Freddie Mogorosi, a colleague in the motor trade. He owns a Mercedes dealership, but he has brought his own car in to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors for a repair. He trusts Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s old-school skills. In the course of several conversations, he also seems to be cultivating Mr J.L.B. Matekoni as a friend, and furthermore wants to put his name forward for a position on a new board that will liaise between the government and the motor trade.

It is all a bit sudden for Mma Ramotswe, and more than a little suspect. She reminds herself that it is not easy for men to make new friends, especially established men with steady jobs and a family life that does not generally bring them into contact with new people. She further reminds herself that a spouse’s choice of friends is something that should be left entirely up to them, outside of extremely unusual circumstances. But when a fishing expedition unexpectedly involves a crocodile, Mma Ramotswe begins to wonder whether this might be one of those extremely unusual times.

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