Kwei Quartey Books In Order

Publication Order of Darko Dawson Books

Publication Order of Emma Djan Investigation Books

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kwei Quartey is a Ghanaian author of mystery, crime, and fiction books best known for his Darko Dawson series featuring Inspector Darko Dawson, a rebel in the office but a dedicated family man. Quartey spends his childhood in Ghana with Ghanaian father and African American mother. Besides writing, the author is a trained physician living in Pasadena.

In 2009, Kwei Quartey book was featured in Los Angeles Times Bestseller List, and the following year he was chosen the Best Male Author by the G.O.G National Book Club. He became a published author in 2009 when Wife of the Gods, the first book in Darko Dawson series was released. In 2013, Dr. Quartey also published a novella titled Death at the Voyager Hotel.

Wife of the Gods

Wife of the gods is the first book in Inspector Darko Dawson series. Just like with any other good mystery, there is a beautiful main character at the center of the plot, and in this case, it’s the likable, flawed Inspector Darko Dawson working for the Ghana Criminal Investigation Department. Darko lives in Accra, Ghana’s capital and he’s a dogged and keen detective sometimes faced with bad anger management and consistent disrespect for the laws and his superiors. Though Darko has an eye for beautiful women, he is a loving and faithful to his wife Christine, a teacher and a good daddy of 6-year-old Hosiah. Darko and Christine’s occupation make them members of the country’s middle class, but they are afraid because they’re not sure whether they’ll save enough money to pay for the treatment of their son heart surgery.

Unlike most urban Ghanaian men, Darko doesn’t drink alcohol and only prefers a soft drink version of Guinness, but he smokes marijuana which he buys from a roust petty thief

Though he doesn’t like the beatings his colleagues use as an investigative technique, Darko has a natural inclination for his rough justice which he quickly dispenses in cases that involve children or women abuse. While Ghanaian cops are unarmed, Darko carries with him a cricket bat which he hides in his car trunk. This tendency and total disregard for the political connections of the people he encounters during his investigations make for a perfect recipe for trouble.

A beautiful medical student doing volunteer work for an anti-AIDs program is found murdered alongside a forest path. There are no deducible signs of robbery, assault or foul play but the local police suspicions fall on the son of a poor village family who was last seen with the woman before she ventured into the forest.

The health official for whom the student was working is not satisfied with the detective work the local police have done and uses his authority to have a senior investigator sent to the crime scene. Detective Darko is the only choice since his mother traces her roots from the village where the crime occurred and is also conversant with the local language and also has some relatives living in the village. For Darko, the journey back to a place he visited in his childhood brings him bad memories of his life enduring torment. Many years before, just after his only brother was left disabled after being hit by a car, Darko’s distressed mom vanished when visiting her sister and despite the police efforts, she was never found. Darko and his paraplegic brother were left in the care of their estranged father and the inspector sent to investigate their mother’s disappearance sparked Darko’s desire to become a detective.

With Darko assigned to the case an autopsy on the body reveals that the student was skillfully murdered and soon the detective suspect list is full of potential suspects including a local priest. Most of the Ghanaians are polytheists, and the priests are responsible for shrines containing sacred effigies. The local people are convinced that they’ve angered the gods and they at times offer females to the priest as a purge gift. When the wives of the gods reach puberty, they are made concubines of the shrine’s priest. The dead student had been locked in a struggle with the detestable priest because of abusing his wives and had tried to persuade some of these women to leave the shrine.

Wife of the Gods is not just a simple well-crafted mystery; it’s also a well-structured and deftly written book. By the time this nicely paced story reaches its dramatic and also unexpected end, our detective will have solved not only the murder mystery but also the mysterious circumstances that led to his mother’s disappearance. Kwei Quartey has a crafted realistic dialogue especially between Darko and Christine and the village herbalist.

For someone who has been long absent from his motherland, Africa, Kwei has an exceptional ability to evoke the simultaneity of the traditional and modern worlds.

Children of the Street

Children of the Street is the second book in the thrilling Inspector Darko Dawson series by Kwei Quartey. The reads are introduced into the bustling streets of Ghana’s capital that is flooded with many different orphaned children without supportive families and shelter.

These poor children of the street endure hardship for the sake of their survival. By day the city resembled a beautiful environment full of successful business, impermeable traffic, and endless pedestrians. However, during the night in the dark shadows of the city streets, a killer lives, preying on the youth within the slum of the city.

One Sunday morning, Darko receives a phone call and is called to a murder scene involving a young victim. The detective term this first murder as a random act of violence, but as more bodies are discovered, Inspector Dark Dawson starts to believe that a serial killer is on the loose- a killer targeting the orphaned street children in Ghana’s capital. During his investigations, Darko is faced with the harsh realities of the street children and a feeling that the serial killer might be more affiliated with the poor folks than he may have initially thought.