Internet scammers, a political assassination, a
mysterious journalist, an intrepid young private investigator, and the fascinating
setting of Ghana—these are just a few of the elements that drive the action in Kwei Quartey's exquisite new crime novel, THE MISSING AMERICAN (Soho, 2020).
THE MISSING AMERICAN introduces the young PI Emma Djan, a
26-year-old Ghanaian woman who, following in her father’s footsteps, longs to
be a homicide detective but is instead placed in a police bureaucracy that has
her investigating dull financial cases and facing sexual harassment from her
superior in the Criminal Investigation Department. The latter ultimately lands
her in a situation that gets her sacked from the CID—but it’s a blessing in
disguise, as she is hired at a local private investigation agency where her
ambitions are better fulfilled and her talents respected.
Emma Djan is almost immediately drawn into the
investigation of a missing American man, Gordon Tilson, who arrived in Ghana in
hopes of meeting a beautiful woman he met online. That woman turns out to be a fraud
run by one of Ghana’s infamous sakawa boys, a ring of criminal who combine cybercrimes with “traditional” rituals
that allegedly enhance their power to swindle unsuspecting foreigners.
The bewildering details and rituals of sakawa are vividly rendered by Quartey
in his unique and at times hypnotic prose. Where other authors may have glossed
over some of these details, Quartey spares us none, which allows the reader a much richer understanding of what is at stake.
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| An apparent bust of sakawa boys in Ghana in a typical staged police photo |
One of the most enigmatic characters is a powerful
investigative journalist, Sana Sana, whose reports reveal the perpetrators of
crimes and corruption at the highest levels. With so much on the line, Sana Sana fiercely
guards his anonymity, veils himself behind a curtain of beads when meeting with
people and undertakes a plethora of security measures before going anywhere.
His investigation into sakawa means
his path intersects with everyone from Gordon Tilson to Emma Djan.
This is a long novel that is rewarding on a number of
levels. The Ghanaian setting will be unfamiliar to most readers, but Quartey is
a gifted guide through its sights, smells, and tastes. His rendering of the
places, ethnic groups, and even dialects and pidgin English is expert. There
are many crimes in the book, not just the internet scams, but of course murder,
too. (We know from the title that someone goes missing.) The criminal elements
are not much of a shock or surprise; but, like a great work of detection,
they are presented and solved alongside the progress Emma Djan makes as the plot unfolds. The
suspenseful pulse of the book is derived from the many elements of
the plot and subplots that require satisfying resolutions--and Quartey, better than most writers, delivers in tying them up.
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| Anas Aremeyaw Anas -- the real-life Sana Sana? |
Quartey brings alive a corner of Africa by mining
realistic details of life and crime in contemporary Ghana and weaving them into
a compelling and entertaining narrative. The sakawa boys present a huge challenge in global cybercrime, but also in local
politics. Sana Sana appears be based on a real investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who maintains his anonymity almost identically to the way
Quartey describes his fictional counterpart. The Ghanaian locations, cities,
landmarks, foods, slang are all credibly portrayed and thereby lend the most
enjoyable details to this delicious and spellbinding novel.
