Kwei Quartey

Investigating the murder of an AIDS worker in an African community from which his mother went missing years earlier, Detective Inspector Darko Dawson collects details about the killing and realizes that he is close to solving the truth about his mother's disappearance. A first novel. Reprint.

A Novel

Wife of the Gods

Kwei J. Quartey

An original debut novel set in Ghana, is the story of Detective Inspector Darko Dawson, who is sent from the big city to the village of Ketanu to solve the murder of an accomplished young AIDS worker. Darko's own mother disappeared from this same villagem

Katrina White

This reads like a basic police procedural at first but all of the atmosphere of Ghana makes it new and fresh for me. The author chronicles the weather, the traffic, the food, and the landscape to great effect. Quartey describes the difference between the big city and the small. The author discusses (through the story) the push and pull between the big city and the small towns where witch doctors are still revered and certain superstitions are still followed. I found it foreign, at first, but then the more I thought about it the more I realized we still deal with that here, (in the US) we have an extreme push and pull between science, anti- science, and religion in America as well. 

I am also reading this book through the eyes of someone who is looking more and more seriously to leave America. In 2019, Ghana had a year of return for the African diaspora. That meant visit or live there and while I don't want to live in a really hot climate (I want to go somewhere cold) I still kept thinking about what it would be like to live there. What would the culture shock and spotty infrastructure be like versus not being in the minority and possibly feeling like I belong somewhere... Rooted. 

The main police officer that we're following through the story is Darko Dawson. He is a very complicated man. We learn his brother was paralyzed when they were young, he watched his mother deal with the guilt of that, then he suffered through her disappearance and assumed death. We also see that he is a wonderful father and a wonderful husband and he takes his job seriously. He's very capable and he's not so full of himself that he doesn't doubt some of his initial assumptions.

However, he routinely beats up suspects and gives into his anger in other ways. And while it's absolutely human and normal, I was just irked at him constantly ogling the women around. But, he didn't cheat and it added to the fullness of his character. Dawson wasn't a one-dimensional hero cop, he wasn't an all-knowing savant; he was just a guy trying to solve a case.

I took one half star off because it took a bit of time to get the story going. However, that might be on me. I had a hard time with the "foreigness" of the names and the setting. When I got over myself, I started to really enjoy the flavor. By the multiple, jaw dropping, and shocking surprises at the end, I realized that Kwei Quarty was being very thorough with his plotting. Every surprise was set up and earned.

Wife of the Gods A Novel

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