Fans who enjoy
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
books' armchair travel to Africa and large cast of eccentric characters, meet
your new obsession: Kwei Quartey. His Ghana-set mystery,
Murder at
Cape Three Points, gives crime-fiction readers an inside
look at life in the West African country, where rampant economic growth
stemming from the country's natural oil reserves does little to alleviate
widespread poverty. Despite the fact that his young son has just had heart
surgery, Inspector Darko Dawson is sent by his superiors from the capital city
of Accra down the coast to Takoradi to investigate a couple's murder near an
oil rig. The man, an executive at Malgam Oil, and his wife, a member of the
Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, were killed and left to float to the
rig in a canoe. In addition to the murder and Dawson's domestic concerns, the
story addresses issues of environmental dangers and economic inequality as an
international oil company with no connection to the region drills in areas
where people are barely eking out a living. Quartey provides such a strong
sense of Ghana that you'll be wishing for a platter of
kenkey,
a staple food made from fermented corn, to keep you from biting your nails to
the quick as Dawson winnows down the list of suspects to solve the mystery.
