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It is twenty years since one of the world's best-loved fictional crime-fighters cracked her first case. Precious Ramotswe, founder of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, cheerful, gentle and armed with canny intuition, has now appeared in eighteen books set in Botswana, selling a staggering 20 million copies in English alone, and translated into more than 46 languages.

Her creator, Alexander McCall Smith, who's speaking at the Hay Festival this week, has received huge praise from critics, not least because they find her charm a reflection of his. As one put it:

"If he has a raging ego, extreme vanity or hopeless insecurity, or, indeed, any of the other traditional writerly frailties, Alexander McCall Smith keeps them well hidden. He is charming, avuncular, a global publishing phenomenon who looks like a Rotary Club chairman." (The Times, March 15th 2008)

He might have made Precious Ramotswe Botswana's most famous sleuth, but he sets much of his prolific output in his home city of Edinburgh, including the 44 Scotland Street series and the Sunday Philosophy Club. There are also more than 30 children's books, a string of stand-alone novels, and various non-fiction titles, quite apart from his academic work as a professor of medical law.