Murder at Cape Three Points

Starred review from January 27, 2014
Quartey’s mastery of the art of misdirection serves him well in his third mystery featuring Accra, Ghana, homicide detective Darko Dawson (after 2011’s Children of the Street). At dawn one morning in the Gulf of Guinea, a crane operator on an oil rig spots a drifting canoe. In the canoe are the bodies of Charles and Fiona Smith-Aidoo, who have both been shot, but the murderer has also beheaded the husband, scooped out an eye, and displayed the head on a pole. When the investigation stalls, Dawson gets on the case after the Smith-Aidoos’ niece, Sapphire, a physician, petitions headquarters for a fresh look. Despite the Smith-Aidoos’ prominence—Charles was corporate-relations director for the oil company near whose rig the corpses were found, and Fiona was the first female director of the local assembly—there’s no shortage of those who wish them ill, including a man who blames the couple for indirectly causing his daughter’s death. A complex plot, combined with a warts-and-all lead and an evocative portrayal of the author’s native country, add up to a winner. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff Literary Agency.

February 15, 2014
In Ghana, Accra DI Darko Dawson's third case--the murder of an oil executive and his equally prominent wife--is his biggest and most ambitious yet. Charles or Fiona Smith-Aidoo must have made someone very angry indeed, for they were both bound and shot before Charles was beheaded, his eye cut out and the pair of them set adrift in a canoe that soon reached an oil rig where their beloved niece, Dr. Sapphire Smith-Aidoo, was on hand to see their bodies discovered. Superintendent David Hammond, the regional crime officer in charge of Sekondi HQ, has made no progress in the four months since. So Chief Superintendent Lartey dispatches Dawson to assist him. The new investigator--whose presence in Accra is sorely missed by his wife, Christine, and their son, Hosiah, who's just recovering from life-saving heart surgery--doesn't exactly get a hero's welcome upon his arrival. Even more daunting, the murders could be rooted in any number of motives. Charles' job at Malgam Oil brought him close to some highly sensitive officials and issues. Kwesi DeSouza, the rival Fiona defeated for political office, was clearly resentful of her victory. The Smith-Aidoos' family tree has tangled roots, and Charles' refusal to help secure medical aid for his cousin Jason Sarbah's dying daughter, Angela, deepened the rift between them. And the murders may be linked to the earlier execution of Goilco CEO Lawrence Tetteh or to tribal traditions that demand ritual sacrifice. All in all, it doesn't look as if Dawson will be getting back to Accra any time soon. The windup may not be as satisfying as the complications, but Quartey (Death at the Voyager Hotel, 2013, etc.) lays out what feel like endless possibilities with exemplary patience and clarity, unveiling world beneath world in Dawson's Ghana.

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March 15, 2014
Quartey's third Detective Inspector Darko Dawson mystery (following Children of the Street, 2011) is about disruption. Ghana, where Dawson serves in the Criminal Investigations Division, was long known as the Gold Coast under British rule. Here, the Brits are still milking Ghana, this time for oil, trying to buy off the fishers around coastal Cape Three Points for their now-valuable land. The disruption gains a powerful symbol when the bodies of a wealthy middle-age couple are found in a canoe near an oil rig. The incentive for Dawson to travel from Accra to Cape Three Points comes when the couple's niece, who happened to be working as a medic onboard the oil rig, complains that the regional police haven't advanced the case for four months. Dawson must leave his family (with his son just recovering from heart surgery) and plunge into a case involving corporations, community rivalries, and far-reaching family vendettas involving black magic. Absorbing for history, contemporary upheavals, plotting, and Dawson's personality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)