Cover image of "Death by His Grace," an African whodunit

The title of this African whodunit implies it. The cover illustration for my Kindle edition of Death by His Grace underlines the hint. And there’s a lot of evidence to suggest it. But is it true? Is multimillionaire Bishop Clem Howard-Mills of the Power of God Ministry Church the heartless killer who took a machete or a knife and carved up beautiful young Katherine Vanderpuye in her home? Chief Inspector Darko Dawson of the Ghana Police Service is under a lot of pressure to solve the murder. But the bishop is powerful and well-connected politically. So he’d better be on solid ground if he’s going to level a charge against the man. And, in fact, there are several other suspects, including Katherine”s husband, Solomon Vanderpuye, her mother-in-law, two of the bishop’s assistants, a mentally ill man seen watching the house the night of the murder, and the ex-boyfriend who’s helping her sue her husband for stealing their house from under her.

Bible-toting Christians don’t come off well here

In this, the last of the five novels in the Darko Dawson series, Ghanaian-American author Kwei Quartey departs from his pattern of engaging the inspector in a story heavy with police procedures. Instead, Dawson goes solo, and the result is disappointing. Of course, as he has done in the four novels that precede Death By His Grace in the series, he uses the opportunity to expose the ugly underbelly of Ghanaian society. The evangelical movement comes off poorly here, and there’s little doubt the picture reflects reality. Quartey is intimately familiar with life in contemporary Ghana. But in the earlier Darko Dawson novels, he did a better job constructing an inherently interesting mystery rather than an old-style whodunit.

Death by His Grace (Darko Dawson #5 of 5) by Kwei Quartey (2017) 273 pages ★★★☆☆

Prayer service at a pentecostal megachurch in Accra, like the one featured in this African whodunit
Prayer service underway at a pentecostal megachurch in Accra, Ghana, like the one featured in this novel. Image: Suave’s Take

A whodunit that ends with big surprises

The story begins on a note of hope, as do so many things in our lives. “Katherine would never forget the day she married Solomon,” Quartey writes. “The wedding was immense, glorious, and the talk of Accra. Solomon’s father, Ezekiel Vanderpuye, a wealthy ex-member of parliament, spared no expense.” And for a time the marriage flourished despite continuous backbiting from Solomon’s mother and sister, who felt he had married beneath his class. At length it became clear that Katherine was incapable of giving birth to the child they demanded. (She suffered from an obstetric syndrome that prevented it.) But Georgina and Maude stepped up the pressure on her, rejecting the scientific explanation. Eventually, their charges that Katherine was a witch who was deliberately failing to give birth led to Solomon rejecting her and moving out of the house.

Then, one night weeks later, as the conflict separating the couple continued heating up, someone murders the poor young woman. And Chief Inspector Dawson faces pressure not just from his superiors but from his wife as well to solve the crime in short order. (She’s a cousin of the murdered woman and was close to her.) And virtually everyone wants to pin the crime on that mentally ill man seen in the neighborhood. But the inspector finds the evidence weak. And he gradually becomes convinced that Bishop Howard-Mills is the culprit. But is he? What will the investigation turn up?

Be advised: the identity of the murderer is not the only big surprise at the end of this novel.

About the author

Photo of Kwei Quartey, author of this African whodunit
Kwei Quartey. Image: Amazon

Kwei Quartey is a retired Ghanaian-American physician who writes detective fiction set in his native Ghana. He has published 10 novels to date. Quartey lives in Pasadena, California, and has resided in the region since 1990. He was born in Accra, Ghana, to a Ghanaian father and a Black American mother, both university lecturers. He began training as a physician at the University of Ghana Medical School, completing his work toward the MD degree at Howard University in Washington, DC. Quartey is gay, as he reveals in his most recent novel, The Whitewashed Tombs.

You’ll also find reviews here for the first four of the five books in Darko Dawson police procedural series:

I’ve also reviewed the first four books in the later Emma Djan series:

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