I’ve seen the Ewe people’s drumming tradition in action too. In fact I’ve taken part in it. Several years ago I spent a week at the Dagbe Cultural Center in Kopeiya, Ghana, studying drumming. A year later I returned to Ghana with my husband to explore the country further. Reading Wife of the Gods was like reimmersing myself in the fascinating culture of this small West African country.
Kwei Quartey is of Ghanaian heritage himself. His Ghanaian father and African-American mother met at Columbia University and both later became lecturers at the University of Ghana near Accra, the capital. Quartey was raised there, though he now practices medicine in California.
Wife of the Gods is his first mystery novel. It sends his sleuth Darko Dawson into the countryside to investigate the murder of Gladys Mensah, a young medical student who has been working in AIDS prevention. The book’s title refers to a custom in which to atone for an evil committed by a family member, a young woman is offered to the gods by marrying her to a village priest.
A review of Wife of the Gods on Amazon complains that the details of African life and customs weigh down the plot to the point that the reviewer abandoned the book. I love mysteries set in other cultures, and I had particular reason to be interested in this one because of my own trips to Ghana. But—initially at least—things moved slowly, indeed.
The fact that Dawson prefers a motorbike to a car in Accra because of the traffic reminded me of the day we returned from Kumasi by bus. Our bus took two slow-moving hours to get from the outskirts of Accra to the station.
Wife of the Gods plays up the contrast between urban and rural Ghana, a contrast more extreme in most African countries than in our world. Accra is a bustling city with areas as modern as one might find anywhere. The six-lane Kwame Nkrumah Highway transports one to the countryside. But it shrinks to two lanes as it cuts through lush green fields and forests that offer glimpses of mud huts clustered into villages. It was in one of these villages that I spent my week studying drumming and it is in just such a village that Dawson sets about unraveling the mystery of Gladys Mensah’s murder.
In the village, Dawson eats meals cooked out of doors on wood fires, as I did. The only light comes from kerosene lanterns, and water is fetched by hand. He speaks Ewe and this aids him in solving the crime. Many Ghanaians, especially younger ones, speak English, but some still speak only the language of their particular tribe, of which there are many.
In Quartey’s acknowledgments he thanks his agent for seeing promise in his “roughly hewn” first version and his editor for helping him shape its published form. Indeed, half-way through things pick up to the point that I stayed up past my bedtime to finish Wife of the Gods—high praise indeed for a mystery writer.
We also have a protagonist with enough back story to provide fodder for many sequels. Will his son Hosiah be cured of the hole in his heart that Quartey can’t afford to fix and Ghana’s National Health plan won’t cover? Will his meddling mother-in-law continue to war with him for her grandson’s affections? Will his hot temper and his fondness for marijuana lead to career difficulties?
Quartey is not the first writer to set a mystery in Africa. But to date the majority have set their books in the south. Botswana has Alexander McCall Smith, of course, as well as two other mystery series. South Africa has James McClure’s Kramer and Zondi mysteries, and numerous others. Tamar Myers has moved things further north with two mysteries set in the Congo. But Quartey is the first to stake out a West African country as his territory—and his own Ghanaian heritage gives a richness and authority to his portrayal of that world.
You can follow inspector Dawson’s further adventures in July’s Children of the Street.
Photos provided by the author.
Peggy Ehrhart is the author of the Maxx Maxwell mysteries, featuring blues-singer sleuth Elizabeth “Maxx” Maxwell. The first Maxx Maxwell mystery, Sweet Man Is Gone, is now available on Kindle and in other ebook formats. Visit Peggy on the web at www.PeggyEhrhart.com.
How interesting, Peggy. I remember discussing this trip with you. You are so adventurous. I’m also going to take a look at the novel mentioned. Great blog!