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Book Description Lyrical and captivating, Kwei Quartey’s debut novel brings to life the majesty and charm of Ghana–from the capital city of Accra to a small community where long-buried secrets are about to rise to the surface. In a shady grove outside the small town of Ketanu, a young woman—a promising med student—has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. Eager to close the case, the local police have arrested a poor, enamored teenage boy and charged him with murder. Needless to say, they are less than thrilled when an outside force arrives from the big city to lead an inquiry into the baffling case. Detective Inspector Darko Dawson, fluent in Ketanu’s indigenous language, is the right man for the job, but he hates the idea of leaving his loving wife and young son, a plucky kid with a defective heart. Pressured by his cantankerous boss, Dawson agrees to travel to Ketanu, sort through the evidence, and tie up the loose ends as quickly and as efficiently as possible. But for Dawson, this sleepy corner of Ghana is rife with emotional land mines: an estranged relationship with the family he left behind twenty-five years earlier and the painful memory of his own mother’s sudden, inexplicable disappearance. Dawson is armed with remarkable insight and a healthy dose of skepticism, but these gifts, sometimes overshadowed by his mercurial temper, may not be enough to solve this haunting mystery. In Ketanu, he finds that his cosmopolitan sensibilities clash with age-old customs, including a disturbing practice in which teenage girls are offered by their families to fetish priests as trokosi, or Wives of the Gods. This is a compelling and unique mystery, enriched by an exotic setting and a vivid cast. And Inspector Darko Dawson—dedicated family man, rebel in the office, and ace in the field—is one of the most appealing sleuths to come along in years. Kwei Quartey on Ghana and Wife of the Gods Wife of the Gods , a novel, is set in Ghana, where I grew up. It is a land of great disparities: privilege and disadvantage, wealth and poverty, high education and illiteracy. There is also a mixing of cultures that may sometimes clash. For example, contemporary, “westernized” medical practice contrasts with traditional healing in which treatments combine lotions and potions with the invocations of the gods, the warding off of curses, and the neutralizing of perceived witchcraft. In Wife of the Gods , these cultural webs are woven into a murder mystery. The book title itself conjures up in the mind the connection of the physical, tangible world with a realm in which gods dwell. For some in Ghana, the two coexist in everyday life. In the story, a young woman is murdered and protagonist Inspector Darko Dawson soon discovers that some people believe the death is the work of a curse from the gods, or of witchcraft. Darko is a detective. It’s his job to be skeptical, but as he tries to sort through these claims on the path to the shocking truth, his mettle is truly tested. The belief in the supernatural comes to involve Darko in a personal way. His son, Hosiah, suffers from congenital heart disease. The boy’s grandmother, and the traditional healer to whom she takes him, both believe that evil spirits are occupying the boy’s chest and causing his symptoms. A physician myself, I would have a well-packaged medical explanation of the mechanism of the Hosiah’s illness, but the evil spirits theory seeks to clarify the why as well as the how. Wearing my writer’s hat, I examine these supernatural notions with curiosity and fascination, realizing that it is as difficult to prove that curses and evil spirits do not exist, as it is to prove they do. It’s been popularly said that once you’ve been in Ghana, you can’t get Ghana out of you. Wife of the Gods is infused with the flavor of the place, the sights and smells, the traditions of drumming, dancing and libation pouring and the disparities of life that I took for granted as I was growing up in Ghana. Those disparities are rich material for the telling of a mystery story. —Kwei Quartey (Photo © Steve Monez) From Publishers Weekly Quartey's winning debut, a police procedural set in modern Ghana, introduces gifted detective Darko Dawson. Dawson leaves the capital city of Accra to investigate a murder in remote Ketanu, where traditional beliefs about the spirit world still reign. He finds no lack of suspects, as the beautiful victim was a married man's impatient mistress and a controversial crusader against AIDS and trokosi , the ancient custom in which young girls become slave wives to local priests. Ketanu is also the village from which Dawson's mother disappeared years before, and his visits awaken a buried need to solve that mystery as well. Dawson is a wonderful creation, a man as rich with contradictions as the Ghana Quartey so delightfully evokes—a loving husband and father with anger management issues on the job and a personal fondness for marijuana. Despite a not hugely exciting denouement, readers will be eager for the next installment in what one hopes will be a long series. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist *Starred Review* Quartey’s crisp, engrossing debut introduces readers to Darko Dawson, a talented and temperamental detective inspector in Accra, capital city ofxa0Ghana. As the novel opens, DI Dawson is called out to the remote village of Ketanu to investigate the suspicious death of Gladys Mensah, a medical student and passionate AIDS worker. Was Gladys killed for her professional ambition (she had a run-in with a local healer who was convinced she was stealing his potions) or because of an unrequited romance with a married man? Returning to Ketanu is a deeply emotional experience for DI Dawson, whose mother disappeared there more than two decades before. He immediately senses the hostility of the Ketanu police, who resent having a big-city officer in their midst. He is also unsettled by the area’s tolerance of the custom of trokosi,xa0in which beleaguered families atone for sins by marrying off their young daughters to fetish priests. Quartey, a Ghana-born medical doctor who now lives in Los Angeles, renders a compelling cast of characters inhabiting a world precariously perched between old and new. Fans of McCallxa0Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels will relish the opportunity to discover yet another intriguing area of Africa. --Allison Block “Move over Alexander McCall Smith. Ghana has joined Botswana on the map of mystery . . . [This] newcomer is most welcome.”— Kirkus “Crisp, engrossing debut…. Fans of McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels will relish the opportunity to discover yet another intriguing area of Africa.” — Booklist, Starred Review “A winning Debut…readers will be eager for the next installment in what one hopes will be a long series.” — Publisher’s Weekly “ Wife of the Gods is a gem. Memorable fiction is always about discovery, and this fascinating debut delivers much that is new. Kwei Quartey contrasts the modern against the ancient while portraying his native West Africa in a way that is always fresh and alluring. He introduces us to people we don’t know who live a culture we’ve never imagined, and he manages to offer the most elusive of fabulist gifts…an engrossing story we haven’t heard.”—Stephen White, author of The Siege “A sensitive novel of powerful family passions, set in the unique and vivid colours of Ghana.xa0 It is a complex mystery and with a detective that I hope we meet again.”—Anne Perry, author of Buckingham Palace Gardens “With great artistry, Quartey takes us on a mystical trip through the heart of Ghana where we visit remarkable characters and find ourselves tangled in unfathomable mysteries.”—Colin Cotterill, author of Curse of the Pogo Stick "Kwei Quartey's wonderful Inspector Darko Dawson mystery, Wife of the Gods , brings to vivid life a character and a setting that no mystery fan should miss.”—Charles Todd, author of A Matter of Justice: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery Kwei Quartey was raised in Ghana by an African American mother and a Ghanaian father, both of whom were university lecturers. Dr. Kwei Quartey practices medicine in Southern California, rising early in the morning to write before going to work. He is currently writing his next novel. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One INSPECTOR MAX FITI had great significance in a place that had little. He was the head of police in Ketanu, a small town in the Adaklu-Anyigbe District of Ghana's Volta Region. All he had was a small police station as ragged as a stray dog, two constables, and an old police vehicle that ran erratically, but when there was trouble, people turned to Fiti. xa0 Case in point: Charles Mensah, a fortyish man with a painfully thin body and a bulbous head like a soldier termite, had just come into his office this morning to report his sister missing. xa0 "When did you last see Gladys?" Fiti asked. xa0 "Yesterday afternoon, around three," Charles said. "Just before she left for Bedome." xa0 "She went to Bedome? To do what?" xa0 "You know she's a volunteer with the Ghana Health Service AIDS outreach. She goes to different villages to teach and so on." xa0 "Aha, yes." xa0 The village of Bedome was east of Ketanu on the other side of the forest. xa0 "When she didn't come back home yesterday evening," Charles continued, "I thought it was strange, so I rang her mobile and left a message. She never called back and I started to get worried, so then I rang Timothy Sowah, the director of the AIDS program, and he said he too had been unable to reach her on the mobile." xa0 "Maybe she went to another village where the reception is poor?" Fiti suggested. xa0 "Mr. Sowah told me Bedome was the only place she was scheduled to visit," Charles replied. xa0 "Are you sure she actually got to Bedome? I mean, not that I'm saying something bad happened on the way, but-" xa0 "I understand what you mean, Inspector. I got up early this morning-I couldn't sleep anyway-and I went to Bedome to check. Everyone told me yes, that Gladys had been there yesterday and she had left some time before sunset to go back to Ketanu." xa0 True, less than twenty-four hours had passed, Fiti reflected, but he agreed this was all very troubling. Gladys Mensah was a serious girl- xa0 reliable, solid, and smart. And beautiful. Very, very lovely indeed. So, yes, Fiti took this seriously. He jotted some notes on a legal pad, sitting slightly sideways because his rotund belly prevented him from pulling up close to his desk. Fiti was approaching the half-century mark in age, and most of the weight he had recently been gaining had gone to his midsection. xa0 "Something else I want to tell you," Charles said. "Maybe it's nothing, but while I was on my way to Bedome this morning, I spoke to some farmers who have their plots near the forest. They told me that while they were working yesterday evening, they saw Samuel Boateng talking to Gladys as she was on her way back to Ketanu." xa0 Inspector Fiti's eyes narrowed. "Is that so?" xa0 He didn't like the Boateng family much. Samuel, the second oldest boy, was a ruffian who had once stolen a packet of PK chewing gum from a market stall. xa0 "Have you asked Samuel or his father about it?" Fiti said. xa0 "We don't speak to the Boatengs," Charles said tersely. xa0 Fiti pressed his lips together. "Don't worry, I'll go and see them myself." Chapter Two EFIA WAS A TROKOSI, which meant that she belonged to the gods. Eighteen years ago, her uncle Kudzo beat a man to death with a branch from a baobab tree. Over the next several months, bad things began to happen to the family: crops failed because of drought, Efia's mother had a stroke, and a cousin drowned in a river. Everyone in the family panicked. Even though Uncle Kudzo had been imprisoned for his crime, it appeared the gods were punishing the family for what he had done. This was the only reasonable explanation for the horrible series of events that had been taking place, and who knew how many more catastrophes were to be meted out by the gods? xa0 The family elders went to the Bedome shrine to consult with Togbe Adzima, chief and High Priest of the village. Adzima, who was an intermediary between the physical world and the spirit world, said yes, there was most certainly a way out of this predicament. The family needed to bring a female child to serve at the shrine. Efia, twelve at the time, was the perfect choice. She was handed over to Adzima to learn "moral ways." This would restore good fortune to the family. As a trokosi, though, she officially belonged to the gods and was to bear their children through Togbe Adzima. He had three other trokosi and nineteen children among them. The wives cooked for him, cleaned, made palm wine, and harvested crops. Every penny from the sale of foodstuffs went to him. xa0 And there lay the heart of the matter. Whatever the supposed reason for the women serving at the shrine, despite their being sometimes loftily called "wives of the gods," they were the source of all Togbe's plenty, and that made life very good for him. xa0 Whenever Efia looked back on the day her new life as a trokosi began, she flinched with the pain of the memory. She and the extended family had walked about sixteen kilometers from their home village to the shrine, bearing all kinds of gifts for Togbe. Efia didn't understand why she was being cleaved from her family. She cried and cried and could not stop. xa0 The shrine itself was a low mud hut containing a large, brightly painted wood carving plastered with human and animal figures. The gods endowed this carved object with magical powers that the priest could summon whenever needed. That's why it was often called a "fetish object" and the priest a "fetish priest," even though many of the priests didn't like the word fetish used to describe them. xa0 Efia remembered entering another hut close to the shrine while her family stayed outside. It was hotter than a northern desert in there, smelly and stifling. Efia knelt down in front of Togbe and two other priests. They poured libation with schnapps and drank up whatever was left in the bottle. Togbe, sweat dripping off his face and body, chanted magic words and waved an oxtail fly whisk over different shrine objects. xa0 Every stitch of Efia's clothing was removed, and a female elder inspected her to make sure she was a virgin. As Efia bowed down in obeisance to the fetish objects, she felt as if she would be choked to death by the smoky heat and the alcohol breath of the men. xa0 But she didn't die. She survived. Her family left her in Bedome and she began her life at the shrine. She never tried to run away. The gods would punish her for that, and anyway, where would she go? Once Efia had reached puberty, Togbe Adzima began to have sex with her. At the age of sixteen, she had her first child, Ama, who was now fourteen. xa0 Efia had missed her period last month and she could tell she was pregnant again. She had suffered two miscarriages since Ama was born. Her second live child, a boy, had died of malaria before he reached the age of one. xa0 Togbe Adzima would want to eat plantain fufu for lunch. Balancing an empty basket on her head without the aid of her hands, Efia walked through the thick bush of the forest toward the plantain grove. Her feet, broad and solid from years of walking, easily passed over the tricky terrain of low shrubs, dead leaves, fallen trees, and trailing vines. It had rained a little last night, and the moist earth was fragrant. Overhead in the trees, birds filled the crisp air with bright morning song. xa0 As she came level with a palm tree, she caught a glimpse of an animal on the ground barely a second before she stepped on it. Snake. She jumped to the side with natural quickness. But when she looked now, she saw that it wasn't a snake. It was a human foot, toes pointing up. xa0 Efia put down her basket and moved slowly around the palm tree. She saw a woman lying on her back partially obscured by the branches of a low shrub. She was fully clothed. Her legs were together, her arms by her sides. Sleeping? xa0 "Heh!" Efia called out. "Hello?" xa0 She came forward two steps, pulled the branches aside, and when she saw the face, the wide-open eyes and the gaping mouth, she recoiled and her blood went cold. xa0 No. xa0 "Gladys?" xa0 In a way, Gladys seemed different, in another way she looked the same. Efia touched her and was shocked by how cold and rigid she was. Her eyes were open but unmoving and cloudy white, as though filled with coconut milk. xa0 "Gladys." Efia began to cry. "Ao, Gladys, wake up, wake up. Gladys!" xa0 She got to her feet and whirled in a circle shrieking for help, but no one was close by. She began to run. Her vision darkened, her hearing deadened, and her feet lost sensation. xa0 She burst out of the bush and spotted a man walking ahead along the Bedome-Ketanu footpath, and she ran after him screaming. He stopped and turned around, and as Efia got closer she recognized him as Isaac Kutu, the local herbalist and healer. His compound was not far away. She felt a surge of hope. Healer. Maybe he can do something. xa0 "Mr. Kutu." She was gasping, trying to catch her breath. "Mr. Kutu, please come." xa0 "What's wrong?" xa0 "It's Gladys Mensah. Hurry!" xa0 Efia turned and began to run back. She could hear Mr. Kutu keeping up behind her. The bush seemed thicker and more tangled now that her energy was so spent, but she knew the way well and got there quickly. xa0 The body was still there. Efia stopped, pointed, and then leaned over with her hands on her knees to get her breath. xa0 Mr. Kutu pulled aside the obscuring bush and drew back at the sight. ... Read more
