Category Archives: Kwei Quartey

Extreme Reading

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I have officially completed the extreme level of the 2010 Global Reading Challenge.

This required me to read 3 books set in different countries of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America, South America plus two books set in Antarctica and a wildcard book set in any time or place new to me. Because that wasn’t quite complicated enough I added my own slant that all the books had to be by new-to-me authors.

Participating in this challenge opened my reading up to 21 new authors, many of whom I wouldn’t otherwise have read. For some of them a single exposure will be enough but many will be reappearing on my reading list in the not too distant future. In fact I’ve already read and/or ordered additional titles from several of the terrific authors discovered on my virtual tour around the globe where I met an array of fascinating people and learned a thing or three I didn’t know.

Here’s my final list of 21 books

Africa

Antarctica

Asia

Australasia

Europe

North America

South America

Wildcard (any time or place new to me)

And here are all the places I’ve visited virtually


View Larger Map

Thanks to Dorte of DJs Krimiblog for conceiving of and hosting the 2010 Global Reading Challenge. It was a hoot and lived up to all aspects of its name and I would encourage you to sign up for the 2011 version of the challenge (in which I am reliably informed you won’t have to read books set in Antarctica to be considered an extremist).

Books of the Month – October 2010

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That Was Then

I finished another 15 books during October (a couple of reviews still to come). Although I didn’t have any 5-star reads it was a high quality month with nothing rating below a 3. My pick of the month has to be Jo Nesbø’s The Redbreast, a novel I abandoned on my first reading last year but picked up again after you all told me to and fell in love with the book’s protagonist, Harry Hole.

There are a veritable treasure trove of honourable mentions which I simply cannot separate. They include trips to Scotland, Iceland, Ghana, America, England, 1850′s Australia and Japan.

New Additions

Since buying my eReader I have curtailed my acquisition of printed books quite dramatically (good for the trees) but have been busy stocking up eBooks and audio downloads (bad for the bank balance). Included among my new acquisitions are the latest Belinda Lawrence mystery, a Harry Bosch novel (Maxine made me give Connelly another go), a flash fiction anthology of stories that involve a mythical ‘Mega Mart’, the second novel in Karin Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series (yes I know I’m behind) and a historical work that blends fact with fiction in what promises to be an interesting fashion.

Challenge Progress

It’s a good thing I had a whole year to complete the Global Reading Challenge as it looks like it will take me that long to finish it. This month I read another two books to bring my total to 19 of 21. Both Villain and Wife of the Gods made it to my honourable mentions for the month.

My only other open challenge is the Canadian Book Challenge which requires me to read 13 books by July next year. I read four books that counted for this challenge in October bringing my total to 7.

Isn’t it marvellous that Canada produces enough entertaining female crime writers that I can have a smorgasboard of them without even trying? Well I am assuming Wolfe is female though of course as it’s a pseudonym I could be wrong.

Reading Now and Next

I’m keen to finish the global challenge now that I only have 2 books to go so have started Southwesterly Wind which is set in Brazil and I’ll probably read my wildcard historical fiction straight after that. Then it might be time for my second Elly Griffiths novel I think. I’ve just started a new audio book, C J Box’s Three Weeks to Say Goodbye, which I am already enjoying and have no plans for what will come after that in audio format.

Chart of the month

So far this year I have finished 129 books which seemed like a statistically significant enough number to look at where they all come from. As you can see I buy most of my books in one form or another. Wonder what this will look like next year? Will I have a giant chunk of pie for pirated eBooks ( and if I do how will I hide it to avoid going to prison)?

What about you? What was your favourite book for October? Or your most exciting acquisition? Or is there something coming up for you in November that you can’t wait to get to?

Review: Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

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This is the 19th book which counts towards the extreme level of the Global Reading Challenge and my final read for the African leg of the tour. It is set in contemporary Ghana and is written by a Ghanian born man who now lives in the US.

In the small town of Ketanu in Ghana a young medical student and volunteer AIDS outreach worker, Gladys Mensah, is murdered and Detective Inspector Darko Dawson is sent from the country’s capital to head up the investigation. The local Inspector believes that a young troublemaker is to blame for the crime, it’s just a matter of getting him to confess, but Dawson thinks they must look further afield.

Darko Dawson is a complex, engaging character who I thoroughly enjoyed meeting. He doesn’t succumb to what might be considered the usual faults of fictional detectives, he is happily married and doesn’t drink alcohol, but he has his share of demons. His young son is in dire need of medical treatment that Darko and his wife cannot afford, he is haunted by the unsolved disappearance of his mother when he was only a boy and he is prone to bursts of violence (though only ever against people who you feel like hitting yourself). He is also a dogged investigator and someone who struggles with the consequences of his actions and decisions and I liked him very much, imperfections and all.

The book is peppered with other well-drawn characters including several strong, credible females. The murdered woman’s Aunt Elizabeth is a delight and deals most admirably with being accused of witchcraft and other unpleasantness and, in the end, the wives of the local ‘fetish priest’ turn out to be made of tough stuff too. The darker characters are equally strong,  engendering a smouldering fury in this reader. The ‘fetish priest’ who accepts gifts of young women to be his wives in return for the removal of curses upon the women’s families vies with the local police Inspector who refuses to see beyond his own prejudices when looking for the murderer for the title of most abhorrent individual in the book.

The other strength of the book is its exploration of modern Ghana where traditional beliefs in witchcraft and healers exist alongside modern scientific and medical practices in an often uncomfortable way.  Quartey, who is a medical doctor, makes it fairly clear what side of any debate he would fall on but the story does allow for the co-existence of some beliefs and practices and also does a lot to explain why the traditional beliefs are attractive and comforting to people in a way that modern science might not be.

To top it all of there is a solid mystery to solve here, and a second one that might also be resolved as Darko uses the opportunity of his return to Ketanu to re-consider his mother’s disappearance all those years ago. For the most part the procedural elements of the story are well-handled, though I found it slightly unbelievable that several people could be arrested for the same crime without much in the way of evidence but that’s a relatively minor point. The ultimate solution wasn’t a huge surprise to me but it was revealed intelligently and its not being obvious to the people in the book was consistent with the culture that was depicted throughout.

I admit I was a little wary picking up this book as I tend to prefer reading books by people who live in the settings they are describing especially when those settings are exotic. However it’s clear that Quartey, who did live in Ghana for many years, has a sound understanding of and respect for the culture. He has managed to depict both positive and negative elements of that culture in a sensitive, non-judgmental way and added a solid mystery and terrific characters to that depiction. I am already looking forward to the second book in this series which is due for publication next year.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Kwei Quartey recently wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog post about why his next book is a better buy than Stieg Larsson. I’m sure authors the world over are wondering what to do to compete with a years-dead Swedish bloke whose books won’t get off the best seller lists. Though Quartey’s publishers are none to shabby in the vacuous comparison stakes as the version I have has pull quotes and blurbs aplenty along the theme of ‘move over Alexander McCall Smith’ which makes about as much sense as labelling everything from Scandinavia the next Stieg Larsson (cosy this book is not).

Wife of the Gods has been reviewed at International Noir Fiction, Murder by the Book and Musings of a Bookish Kitty

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 4/5
Publisher Random House [This edition 2010, original edition 2009]
ISBN 9780812979367
Length 312 pages
Format trade paperback
Source I bought it