Ghana Crime Fiction from Kwei Quartey, DEATH BY HIS GRACE

As crime fiction author Kwei Quartey continues to develop his investigative protagonist, Chief Inspector Darko Dawson of the Ghanaian federal police, his writing is growing more intense, more focused, more compelling. You might be the first in your circle of friends to read him -- even though he's already been on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller list -- but my experience is, there are a LOT of people I'd like to give his books to, right away. Could there be any better measure of a crime novel?

First, here's a capsule summary of Quartey himself: "Kwei Quartey writes early in the morning before setting out to work at HealthCare Partners, where he runs a wound care clinic and is the lead physician at an urgent care center."

Right? Also, as Quartey's author website mentions, he makes sure to experience for himself the events he'll be describing. For one of his Darko Dawson books, that meant that he "underwent training to enable him to travel on a chopper taking oil workers from shore to the deep-sea rig, which occurs in the story. The training includes how to escape from a helicopter that has crashed in the ocean."

Here at Kingdom Books, Quartey's work (via Soho Crime) has been well liked in the past (reviews here). But DEATH BY HIS GRACE takes the narrative to a more polished level; asks deeper questions (like, how do you compare suspicion of local witchcraft, with manipulation in a big church congregation); and positions Darko Dawson to grow as an investigator who can step beyond his comfort level to see what's motivating the crimes in front of him.

At the heart of the story is a marriage made by a relative of Darko's wife Christine: one in which the new bride isn't getting pregnant on schedule, and the in-laws launch an attack on the marriage on grounds of witchcraft. The bride's side of the conflict involves a minister of a "superchurch" (the kind with huge crowds and management teams). When the conflict turns violent, then deadly, the obvious suspect is of course a spouse -- but what if the extended family members committed the actual crime? Or simply incited it, out of envy and malice?

Further, does the family connection mean Darko shouldn't even be involved here?

Darko was experiencing conflict. Typically, he would have allowed the cumbersome CID machinery to determine how a homicide would be assigned, but this time the murder victim was a family member. Should he lobby to be the chief investigator? The answer wasn't that clear-cut for Darko.

And the situation gets even more complicated when Darko's mother-in-law, always ready to judge him as deficient, demands that he take the case.

Quartey's storytelling has the feel of translated work, even though he's clearly embedded in American culture himself; the slight tilt of the words (more direct narrative, and a quicker pace as a result) gives the book the feel of being "told" by a Ghanaian voice, adding to the experience of exploring this African nation via the experience and views of the characters. Highly recommended -- and published by Soho Crime, at the peak of international crime fiction.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Ghana Crime Fiction: Kwei Quartey Succeeds with Third Darko Dawson Investigation

Spring is emphatically arriving on the East Coast, even here in Vermont, where the snowpack is melting noisily, water pouring downhill, birds calling, deer tentatively coming out of the woods to see what plant life around the house and shop might sustain them a bit longer. We have Weather in wild variety and landscape that's "American classic" -- mountains, rivers, fields.

So it's a powerful contrast to step into MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS, the newest Darko Dawson investigation from Kwei Quartey, and migrate to the oceanfront, the hot sand-swept cities, the land of tribal tradition, omens, and malicious magic.

Detective Inspector Darko Dawson isn't quite ready for what he's suddenly responsible for solving: the murder of a wealthy married couple of significance, a case that's lingered for months without solution and that "belongs" to the police in Takoradi, on the coast. Dawson is part of a federal police force headquartered in Ghana's capital city, Accra -- and his boss says firmly that with the socially important family member of the victims, requesting federal intervention on the case, Dawson must leave immediately to tackle the cold case.

Few situations could show so quickly how little choice Dawson has: His young son Hosiah's cardiac surgery is barely a day into recovery, and Dawson and his family expect him on hand. But there is no way to decline the case without losing his job, and soon Dawson's on a State Transport bus to Takoradi, where -- without travel stipend or other support --  he's persuaded a relative to let him stay in an unfinished building. It's basic but workable; still, when his superintendent sends along an assistant (who happens to be the superintendent's nephew), the plush hotel lodgings that the assistant investigator receives throw into further perspective Dawson's perilous position. He's got to solve this case to maintain his own forward progress.

But what a case! Is there traditional magic involved? And is there significance to the location of the victims' bodies, in a canoe near an oil rig? Dawson juggles the facts as they emerge -- and for some of them, he has to handle the region's ladder of prestige and power, just to get the details:

His mind flitted over the events of the past two days like an undecided humming bird. Instinctively, he felt that the Smith-Aidoo murder had greater breadth and depth than any of his previous cases. Two corpses in a canoe adrift around a deep-sea oil rig, a severed head with an excavated eye socket, a nineteenth-century pocket watch with a scrawled inscription invoking blood ties. What did it all mean?

Kwei Quartey left Ghana after spending time in jail there for political protest, and became an American physician, still in practice in Southern California (more info here). Returning to visit Ghana as a prosperous adult, in 2008, he resumed connections with the west African nation. This is his third book featuring Detective Inspector Dawson -- the others are Wife of the Gods and Children of the Street. Reading MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS without the other two isn't a problem, as Quartey deftly brushes in the needed details ... but his protagonist is such a thoughtful and hard-working investigator that I think many readers will want to fill in the rest of the series for themselves. I'm not likely to have a chance to see Ghana in person, so I particularly appreciate being able to travel there in this way, through the eyes of an author who experiences multiple cultures, and a police officer who has reason to challenge his environment. I'm looking forward to more.

Brief Mention: THE MISSING AMERICAN, Kwei Quartey, Ghana Mystery

The Ghanaian mysteries from Kwei Quartey, published under the Soho Crime imprint of Soho Press, prove how vital it is to read, read, read -- across lines of culture. Following the emotional journey and puzzle solving of a crime novel protagonist conveys culture far more effectively than a documentary can. Because what matters most is the human journey of exploration, growth, survival ... and love.

Quartey, born in Ghana and now a a physician in southern California, created his first series around Ghana Police Service officer Darko Dawson and his family. Freighted with significant needs for his wife and children and the community he cares for, Dawson's negotiated crime and corruption, and done well for himself. Still, in many ways, despite the very different landscape, the framework for the Darko Dawson novels has felt familiar, an echo of the values and passions of North American life.

With his newest title, THE MISSING AMERICAN, Quartey takes a leap into far more edgy writing, with dark twists and disturbing motives. Fittingly, he introduces a new protagonist: 26-year-old Emma Djan, eager for a police career like her father's but dumped unceremoniously out of the police force in a harshly unfair twist that #metoo readers will confirm is far too likely.

However, with a dash of luck, a connection with a former associate takes Emma to a job after all, in a private detective agency. The "crimes" she'll investigate are more personal and less idealistic -- cheating spouses, for instance -- but also include missing persons, as well as opportunities to test her deductive reasoning. It's not the worst possible outcome.

Yet Ghanaian crime includes notorious global scam networks, and Emma's fall from grace hasn't made her immune to this dark network of misleading and threat. When her path crosses with that of American Derek Tilson, whose vulnerable and lonely father's become a scam victim and is now missing, the plot escalates. Suddenly Emma's in the midst of experiences very much like those she'd have faced as a police officer:

The attendant rolled back the sheet and Emma saw it was even worse than she'd imagined. Had not a head and outstretched arms been present, Emma would bot have thought it human. Eyes popped out from a blue-green face that had become slimy, bloated, and pushed off to the side like a badly-fitted mask. The mouth was open with the lips forming an oval in a silent scream for help. Some of the skin on the arms and chest had turned deep purple and had sloughed off—or was about to.

Emma shuddered and averted her eyes. Derek retched, turned, and ran out of the room. Sowah looked at Ema and they both went after Derek. He was outside the building leaning against the wall in the rain.

Because Emma's worked to find Derek's father as a missing person case, her role is technically now done -- but can she let go of solving the actual crime?

Quartey laces THE MISSING AMERICAN with other scenes that are as tragic and terrible, and some that shiver with horror. He uses Emma's reactions to probe the reasons for such moments: poverty, morality, family dysfunction? Whichever is responsible for each form of human abuse, it's not isolated. And in this new depth of exploration, Quartey gives us a fresh series with potential for sustained insight and deep, if painful, consideration.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Ghana Mystery, GOLD OF OUR FATHERS, Kwei Quartey

In this fourth in the Darko Dawson investigations (there's also a novella), Darko's just been promoted to Chief Inspector in the Ghana Police Service, which ought to call for celebration -- especially because Darko's own promotion follows that of his cantankerous boss Theophilus Lartey. Readers of the first three books in Ghanaian-American author Kwei Quartey's series -- Wife of the Gods, Children of the Streets, Murder at Three Points -- know that Lartey made things difficult for Darko Dawson and especially for Dawson's family, with frequent assignments away from the family home in Accra, where his wife Christine teaches school and his sons are finally thriving.

But the new Chief Superintendent Oppong, although an unexpectedly tidy and organized man and reasonably kind on the first day of teamwork, has rough news for Darko: a year-long transfer out of headquarters, to take charge of a police station in 160-miles-distant Obuasi where the head officer just died. Considering Ghana's roads and traffic and more, that's not a workable commute. Darko's entire family life will need rearranging, including the care for his more vulnerable son Hosiah.

Even as Darko Dawson's family changes its plans, Darko's racing to his new position, where the discovery of a murder in the muddy terrain of the gold mines brings immediate relief from trying to straighten out backlogged records, lazy staff, and more. It's enough to cheer Dawson up and give him the satisfaction of an urgent investigation of a crime.

GOLD OF OUR FATHERS reveals the power struggles of comparatively wealthy mine owners and a labor force of people who have little control over their lives. But it also portrays in a tender fashion the customs, traditions, and linguistic dances of Ghanaian life, from the finger snapping that accompanies a handshake, to traditional foods and courtesies. Plus in today's Ghana, the presence of the Chinese -- as both land investors and working people -- challenges the local ways of life. In his new position, Darko Dawson has little leverage and no quick way to his staff's needed loyalty. Good thing he figures out how to pull his former assistant from Accra to come help for a while!

Meanwhile, in this new location, the Chief Inspector confronts many temptations and bad practices that his Accra post no longer offered him, from bribes to an informant being beaten and, most dangerous for Darko Dawson, the frank interest of an intelligent woman, journalist Akua Helmsley:

"Chief Inspector," she said. "We meet again."

"And I'm sure not for the last time," he said, barely slowing his pace as he walked by, but she kept up with him.

"Progress?" she asked.

"Not much. ... The legal status of miners isn't my concern, Miss Helmsley."

Obeng got in the back seat with Wei.

"So, no prime suspect so far," Helmsley said. "Where are you going now?"

"To make some inquiries," Dawson said unhelpfully as he got into the front passenger seat.

"I'll check back with you in a couple of days," Helmsley said. "Is that okay?"

"Yes," Dawson replied, not sure he meant it.

The journalist clearly has a role in the pattern of crimes Dawson's investigating. But was she an innocent party? An instigator, creating news by pushing people toward confrontation? Or an investigator herself -- and if so, an honest one, or corrupt?

The layers and tangles add to Quartey's adept storytelling and make this a well-paced and intriguing crime investigation with significant human costs and caring. I'm enjoying the series very much -- if you haven't yet read the others, though, Quartey makes it easy to step into this fourth novel "cold" and get close to Dawson and his team.

GOLD OF OUR FATHERS is a police procedural with the twist of how policing struggles in an underdeveloped nation that's suffered the colonial boot and then desertion, open to the money and power of foreign corporations and individuals. So although the scenery and family conflicts may call to mind the gentle frictions of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, Quartey's books are closer in texture to, say, Archer Mayor's or William Kent Krueger's -- add them to your contemporary mysteries shelf, with the fresh spice of international flavor. Available now, from Soho Crime -- of course!

Brief Mention: LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ, by Kwei Quartey

Collecting international crime fiction? Ghana-born physician and author Kwei Quartey's Darko Dawson series, set mostly in Ghana, has been a pleasure; Quartey's current series is a spinoff that features Emma Djan, a private detective always alert to gender discrimination as she works her way up in a local agency (the police force dumped her, early in the series).

LAST SEE IN LAPAZ opens with the disappearance of a young Nigerian woman, daughter of a friend of the agency owner. (Lapaz is a town in the Accra Metropolitan District -- not related at all to La Paz, New Mexico.)  The attractive and hard-working Ngozi seems to have run away from home, across the national border, and might be in Accra. If, that is, she's alive.

Emma Djan isn't yet authorized to do a lot of investigation on her own, but she has an advantage here, because she can perform a flirtatious role with the greedy (in every sense) hotel owners who seem linked to the disappearance. When one hotel turns out to be supplying female companions, perhaps forced into this upscale prostitution, Emma's both horrified and fascinated. Anything to avoid the boredom of routine PI work!

Her insight into women's lives also gives her an advantage as she investigates with Boateng, the local DI (inspector on the police force):

Boateng grunted. "You seem to be studying this room closely, Djan. What do you see?"

"No disorder, no chaos. It has a controlled feeling. Someone who has been in this room was trying to gain control over the other, but couldn't quite do it. ... This entire house is a clue."

Despite his California location, Quartey's writing continues to have the choppy feel of translated material, possibly an intentional effect to suggest the movement among local languages and dialects. The book suffers somewhat from quick changes in point of view, among investigators and criminals. But it's still a revelatory experience of urban life in Ghana, and neatly plotted, with caste and related attitudes deftly portrayed. 

Collect it for your African mystery shelf, as well as for the diverse spread of Soho Crime's continued global outreach.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Reviews Coming Thursday: Kwei Quartey, Mike Bond, Jacqueline Winspear

Excited to have three reviews to share on Thursday April 28 -- I wish I could share them today, but other deadlines have crashed through the week.

GOLD OF OUR FATHERS from Kwei Quartey is the fourth Darko Dawson mystery (fifth if you count the novella from 2013), set in Ghana, and confirms that the magic behind a really good mystery is the tension that crime and crimesolving place in the life of an important character.

KILLING MAINE from Mike Bond came out in 2015 and just won the New England Book Festival First Prize for Fiction -- lots of things to enjoy here, including the "buddies from Special forces" aspect and a focus on environmental risk.

And every Jacqueline Winspear novel of Maisie Dobbs is a great excuse to kick back and immerse in the story, and in JOURNEY TO MUNICH this World War I-related series reaches the terrifying start of the Second World War.

Check back in on Thursday afternoon. Sorry to keep you waiting!

Michael Stanley, A DEADLY COVENANT, A Detective Kubu Mystery

The mysteries by Michael Stanley—a pen name for the team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip—have a somewhat muddled publishing history. A DEADLY COVENANT is the seventh in the team's Detective Kubu series, and is published by White Sun Books, which only publishes this author ... so is probably best defined as self-publishing. Still, it's worth taking a look at this title to add it to the shelf if you've started a collection of the series, or have an interest in Sub-Saharan Africa as a locale for mysteries.

"Kubu" is a nickname that means hippopotamus, for Detective Sergeant David Bengu of the Bostwana Criminal Investigation Department. It's an unfortunate nickname, prone to disrespect, but this detective usually feels he's made a connection with people when they start using it. (Glass half full.) Being sent on a five-day trip to distant Shakawe with the department's pathologist, Ian MacGregor, looks likely to expose all of Kubu's insecurities and inexperience. But MacGregor is genial and supportive, and at first it looks like they just need to identify a long-buried skeleton as human, so an irrigation project can continue.

However, the crime scene quickly grows complicated, with multiple Bushman bodies suggesting a long-ago massacre; then a local counsellor gets murdered, and Kubu finds himself in the minority in believing that the lone Bushman is the area might not be responsible. Not only is he swimming upstream against prejudice against the Bushman, but there's some sort of collusion going on in the settlement's government and those pressing the water project forward. 

Eventually, Kubu learns some ways to keep the investigation going, like telling a local leader, "We don't want some civil-rights lawyer getting the Bushman off on the grounds that we did a bad job, do we?"

The mystery moves briskly and has an intriguing plot. It does, however, feel a bit dated, in both the clumsiness of the investigation and the local real estate corruption, and in Detective Kubu's unsophisticated approach. Those who prefer ethnic portrayals to be written by members of those ethnic groups will find this an uncomfortable narrative. This again suggests that the series is no longer timely. Like Arthur Upfield's "Bony" series set in Australia, Michael Stanley's books represent a very different time with different expectations of both authors and characters.

Despite this caution, the books have support from Ghanaian-American author Kwei Quartey. So, go ahead a pick up the latest in the series—then let your thoughts engage with our changing cultures, while you watch Kubu solve the multiplying crimes around him.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.