Kwei 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 village many years ago, and as the mystery unfolds, the reader meets a rich cast of characters, and learns about Trokosi, a system where young teenage girls are sent to live with fetish priests to bring good...

"Hard-hitting talk show host Augustus Seeza has become a household name in Ghana, though plagued by rumors of lavish overspending, alcoholism, and womanizing. He's dating the imposing, beautiful Lady Araba, who leads a self-made fashion empire. Araba's religious family believes Augustus is after her money and intervenes to break them up. A few days later, just before a major runway show, Araba is found murdered in her bed. Her driver is arrested after...

"Darko Dawson has just been promoted to Chief Inspector in the Ghana Police Service--the promotion even comes with a (rather modest) salary bump. But he doesn't have long to celebrate, because his new boss is transferring him from Accra, Ghana's capital, out to remote Obuasi, in the Ashanti region, an area now notorious for the illegal exploitation of its gold mines. The assignment will last at least a year, meaning Dawson has the unpleasant choice...

"At Cape Three Points on the beautiful Ghanaian coast, a canoe washes up at an oil rig site. The two bodies in the canoe--who turn out to be a prominent, wealthy, middle-aged married couple--have obviously been murdered; the way Mr. Smith-Aidoo has been gruesomely decapitated suggests the killer was trying to send a specific message--but what, and to whom, is a mystery. The Smith-Aidoos, pillars in their community, are mourned by everyone, but especially...

"Just as things at work are slowing down for PI Emma Djan, an old friend of her boss's asks for help locating his missing daughter. According to her father, Ngozi was just months shy of graduating high school when she became secretive and withdrawn. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was be with her handsome new beau, Femi, instead of attending law school in the fall. So when she disappears from her parents' house in Nigeria the middle of a summer night,...