I had never heard of this book or this writer when my local Mystery Club chose it for this month's reading. I dutifully procured a copy and read it. I think it is unlikely I would have picked it up without that incentive.

It was this writer's first novel. It is set in his native Ghana (he now lives in the United States) and it exudes a strong sense of place. He manages to explore some of Ghanaian traditional values and ideas as they clash with more modern attitudes.

The core of the story is the murder of a young and beautiful medical student who is working in an AIDS education program in the country. She is found strangled near a footpath in the bush where she was contacting people. A member of the health agency that she was working for contacts the central government and requests that a CID detective from the capital take over the investigation because he is afraid the local police are not up to the task. The man who is chosen for the job is D.I. Darko Dawson.

Dawson has familial ties to the part of the country where the murder took place and he speaks the local language, so he seems to be the man for the job. In order to investigate the murder, Dawson has to leave his wife and his son who has a congenital heart problem. He is reluctant to leave his family but must do his duty.

During the investigation, he makes some wrong moves, at least as judged by local society. It turns out that he has a barely controlled rage problem and this has gotten him into trouble before.

Quartey plays fair in laying out the clues along the trail of his story, with the result that I actually solved the mystery long before his detective, but I read all the way to the end. There are some interesting characters here and the writer may develop them further in his next novel. This first effort was okay. I didn't feel that I was wasting my time reading it, but it is not something that I can really highly recommend.