My first experience with what has become known as an “internet scam” actually arrived in the form of a snail-mail letter that I received in 1994. The sender advised me that there was 13 million AMD in the account of a deceased citizen in Nigeria that I could acquire if I would be willing to turn over my bank account information and tender in advance an amount equal to a (relatively) small commission plus transmittal fees. These have become much more sophisticated over the course of the last quarter-century, while adding emotional and romantic involvement as yet another hook to sink into a potential victim.

Author Kwei Quartey, whose critically acclaimed Inspector Darko Dawson books have acquired a steadily increasing readership, uses the Ghanian internet scam business to introduce private investigator Emma Djan in THE MISSING AMERICAN, the first of what hopefully will be a long-running series.

"Anyone with more than a passing interest in the world of internet scamming must read THE MISSING AMERICAN, with its extremely realistic heroine and unblinking assessment of cultural similarities and differences between the United States and Ghana."

Most of the book takes place in Accra, Ghana, and its surrounding environs. Indeed, Quartey wastes little time in setting up his storyboard. Ghana Police Service Constable Emma Djan’s hope was to follow her deceased father’s career path as a homicide detective, but she is making the best of her assignment in the busy yet unexciting Commercial Crimes Unit. When she is given the chance to join the homicide division, she jumps at it. However, her refusal to compromise her principles in a nightmarish vignette during her interview for the position causes her to lose both the opportunity and her job in the police department.

Emma is tossed a lifeline when a former colleague sets her up for an interview with the Sowah Detective Agency, a private investigation firm that is one of only two such agencies in Accra that is fully licensed and vetted. She is immediately hired and almost as quickly gets her baptism by fire when the firm is retained by an American named Derek Tilson. Derek has come to Accra out of concern for the safety of his father, Gordon. The senior Tilson, a widower, had developed an online relationship with a woman from Accra and had sent her several thousand dollars to cover her sister’s emergency hospital bills. Gordon decided to journey to Accra to meet his soulmate in person, but discovered upon his arrival that she does not exist. He resolved to use his time in Accra to find out who was scamming him. Derek has journeyed there and retained the Sowah firm after not hearing from him for a few weeks.

Emma’s investigation plunges her and Derek into the world of the “sakawa boys,” who practice fraud on an international basis by utilizing a unique combination of cutting-edge software and internet schemes with traditional witch doctor magic. She attempts to determine Gordon’s fate while bringing the people who defrauded him to justice. There are several investigative and cultural twists and turns that Emma must navigate, but what she lacks in experience she more than makes up for with a canny intelligence and dogged determination that helps see her to a most satisfactory, if somewhat bittersweet, conclusion.

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the world of internet scamming must read THE MISSING AMERICAN, with its extremely realistic heroine and unblinking assessment of cultural similarities and differences between the United States and Ghana. I also must give a tip of the fedora to Quartey and his publisher, Soho Crime, for the book’s extensive glossary for those of us interested in broadening our vocabularies. Well played, and strongly recommended.