The Missing American

Front Cover
Soho Press, 2020 - Fiction - 419 pages
A 2021 Edgar Nominee for Best Novel

Accra private investigator Emma Djan's first missing persons case will lead her to the darkest depths of the email scams and fetish priests in Ghana, the world's Internet capital.

When her dreams of rising through the Accra police ranks like her late father crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her career. Through a sympathetic former colleague, Emma gets an interview with a private detective agency that takes on cases of missing persons, theft, and infidelity. It's not the future she imagined, but it's her best option.

Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife's passing. Through the support group, he's even met a young Ghanaian widow he's come to care about. When her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill--to the horror of his only son, Derek. Then Gordon decides to surprise his new love by paying her a visit--and disappears. Fearing for his father's life, Derek follows him across the world to Ghana, Internet capital of the world, where he and Emma will find themselves deep in a world of sakawa scams, fetish priests, and those willing to kill to protect their secrets.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
23
Section 2
32
Section 3
40
Section 4
126
Section 5
156
Section 6
172
Section 7
218
Section 8
230
Section 12
360
Section 13
364
Section 14
370
Section 15
380
Section 16
384
Section 17
392
Section 18
398
Section 19
402

Section 9
238
Section 10
274
Section 11
342
Section 20
406
Copyright

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About the author (2020)

Kwei Quartey is a crime fiction writer and physician. He practiced medicine for more than 20 years while working as a writer. Dr. Quartey balances the two professions by dedicating the early morning hours to writing before beginning a day in his clinic. Dr. Quartey attended medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1990, he began practicing medicine in California with HealthCare Partners. Dr. Quartey later founded the facility's wound care center while working as an urgent care physician. As a crime fiction writer, Kwei Quartey made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List in 2009. Having published 2 books in An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery Series, Wife of the Gods and Children of the Street, the release of a third novel in the series, Murder at Cape Three Points, is scheduled in March 2014. Death at the Voyager Hotel, a mystery e-novella not belonging to the series, was published July 2013.