The Blue Giraffe mystery extends far deeper. Together with Mtengeni he observes not just the animal in question but another giraffe with a goat-like beard, only six feet long, a green hippopotamus with pink spots, and a two-headed rhinoceros. Other creatures are so mutated their very survival is threatened, and Mtengeni is concerned about the long-term prospects of the animal population. Establishing camp in the bush, the two are separated when the warden goes out into the night for firewood and Cuff, hearing what he takes for a native woman's scream from another direction, heads off to investigate. He finds the woman, treed
Tears of the Giraffe the second and third installments of his dignified, humorous Botswanan series. In "Tears of the Giraffe", PI Precious Ramotswe tracks a missing American man whose widowed mother appeals to Ramotswe; meanwhile, the imperturbable detective is endangered at home by her fiancé's resentful maid." In a review of a later book in the series, Janet Malcolm mentions an aspect of the author's writing that shows best in this second novel of the series: "McCall Smith follows the satiric literary tradition in which a "primitive" culture is held up to show the laughable backwardness of Western society. . . . To illustrate