Ghana

Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

Introducing Detective Inspector Darko Dawson: dedicated family man, rebel in the office, ace in the field—and one of the most appealing sleuths to come along in years. When we first meet Dawson, he’s been ordered by his cantankerous boss to leave behind his loving wife and young son in Ghana’s capital city to lead a murder investigation: In a shady grove outside the small town of Ketanu, a young woman—a promising medical student—has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. Dawson is fluent in Ketanu’s indigenous language, so he’s the right man for the job, but the local police are less than thrilled with an outsider’s interference. 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 inexplicable disappearance. Armed with remarkable insight and a healthy dose of skepticism, Dawson soon finds his cosmopolitan sensibilities clashing with age-old customs, including a disturbing practice in which teenage girls are offered to priests as trokosi, or Wives of the Gods. Delving deeper into the student’s haunting death, Dawson will uncover long-buried secrets that, to his surprise, hit much too close to home.

My Thoughts:

I did not finish this book.  Looking back now at the description it seems obvious to me that this book would not be a good fit for me. It is hard when I spend too much time trying to find the right book and have to pick the best from a bad bunch that I don't really actually know very well.  

I always try to get a least halfway through a book before I move on to another one.  Often times a book will pick up or I will become more interested in it by then.  This did not happen with this book. This book became too "soap opera-ish" to me, which doesn't hold my interest.  I was disappointed because Ghana seems like a fascinating country to learn about.  I can watch documentaries, but there is something about spending time in a book that is more satisfying to me.

My Ratings:

Well written:  Yes

Easy to follow:  Yes

Held my attention:  Not really, I got bored

Would I recommend this to a friend:  No
Did it represent the country: Somewhat

Content:

Sexual Content: Yes, descriptive, but not pornographic.  There may have been more in the last half of the book that I did not read.

Violence: It is a murder investigation

Genre: Mystery

Pages: 317