Book Review: Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

When we spent a few days in Accra at the beginning of our trip last September, we also visited an amazingly well-stocked bookstore. In addition to many titles that can also be found in European bookstores, there was a small but fine selection of works by Ghanaian authors. There I also found my travel reading for the long drive to Saboba: Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey.

The book is the first in a series of crime novels featuring Detective Darko Dawson. Although he lives in Accra, in this volume he is transferred to the fictional small town of Ketanu in the Volta Region in eastern Ghana to investigate the murder of Gladys, a young medical student. A disturbing custom is still practiced in this region – that of trokosi: families in the village must give a virgin daughter to the local fetish priest as a “wife.” The fact that he keeps all so-called “god brides” as slaves is just one of the abysses into which the increasingly disoriented Darko gazes.

Even though the town of Ketanu is fictional, the custom of trokosi is a real practice in parts of the rural Volta region in eastern Ghana. Although the custom was banned by law in 1998, according to reports, there were still around 1,400 trokosi in Ghana in 2008.

Despite the serious subject matter, it is a captivating book – not least because of the likeable investigator Darko. The identity of the murderer remains unknown until the very end. Many details in the book reminded me of things I have seen myself in Ghana. For example, the cuisine – fufu or banku – but also small observations such as religiously inspired shop names à la In God We Trust Motors.

Although Kwei Quartey grew up in Ghana, he describes rural life in particular as exotic and foreign. This is understandable for non-Ghanaian readers, but readers who are familiar with Ghana and the Volta region report minor inaccuracies. Some names, terms, and customs in the book are common in Ghana, but cannot be clearly assigned to a specific ethnic group, as is done in the book.

Nevertheless, I found it a very exciting and entertaining book that gave me an insight into one of the darker sides of Ghana. Five volumes of the Darko Dawson series have now been published, set in different regions of Ghana. The first volume has been published in German under the title Trokosi.

I highly recommend it to anyone who likes crime novels and Ghana!