Once upon a time in Botswana there was a little girl who would later grow up to be a famous detective: Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Having already cracked the Case of the Missing Cakes at school, the 8-year-old future sleuth now has a new mystery to solve. Precious has two new friends at school, Pontsho and Teb, and though they are poor they keep a meerkat named Kosi, and they are upset that their family's most valuable possession, their cow, has gone missing. Alexander McCall Smith employs his irresistible storyteller's charm in this chapter book for readers 7 to 10, with delightful woodcut illustrations by Iain McIntosh.