Written by Kwei Quartey
SUMMARY:
In 2023, Soho Press, Inc. released the third Emma Djan mystery: the 342-page Last Seen in Lapaz. Working full-time at Sowah Private Investigators Agency in Ghana, twenty-something Emma Djan is presently navigating perceived strife between her boyfriend, Courage (a police SWAT team member), and her visiting/semi-meddling mother. Emma is also embracing some adult growth, as far as resisting how religion and her mother dictate choices in her personal life.
At the behest of her boss, Emma and colleague Jojo are assigned to search for a missing college student, who is the daughter of his influential old friend from Nigeria. Initially, it is unknown if 18-year-old Ngozi Ojukwu willingly participated in her disappearance from the Ojukwu family home. Through Courage’s tip, Emma finds out that Ngozi’s sleazy boyfriend, Femi, has been found brutally murdered at a local high-end brothel dubbed ‘The White House.’
Co-mingling their investigations, Emma and the police’s Detective Inspector Boateng team up to probe potential suspects. With Femi’s cell phone missing, it likely contains crucial evidence as to Ngozi’s fate. Before Emma goes undercover into a Ghanaian sex trafficking ring, flashbacks reveal how pivotal players (including Femi, Ngozi, and others) ultimately converged in this murder-mystery.
Desperately saving one witness from a sexual predator, Emma finds that this repellant case involves international human trafficking extending from Africa to Europe. As revealed in flashbacks, the ruse pertains to a ‘travel agency’ offering migrants safe transportation and supposed freedom in starting new lives far away from African poverty.
Trying to save Ngozi and, by extension, resolve Femi’s chilling homicide becomes Emma’s dual focus. Conflicting shades of gray emerge amongst Femi’s inner circle, as the case’s true monsters begin revealing themselves.
REVIEW:
Kwei Quarety’s Last Seen in Lapaz is a bleak literary paradox: a very likable protagonist treads into Africa’s ugly subculture of prostitution and human trafficking to save two innocent lives. As Quartey’s note acknowledges, the plot’s degradation of human beings makes some sequences sickening.
The author, at least, keeps most of the grisliest violence ‘off-screen,’ so to speak. Wincing at the nasty aftermath he depicts, however, becomes a given. To his credit, Quartey isn’t exploiting icky subject matter; rather, he is drawing his audience to its harsh realities via Emma’s storyline.
As for Quartey’s cast, they present an intriguing pendulum. On one side is a personable Emma Djan and her trustworthy allies. Her family and friends, hence, are all very conventional for the detective genre, with only Emma’s personality being explored among them.
Yet, the other side consisting of roguish ex-convict Femi, Ngozi, and a horde of illicit associates is loaded with depth. Primarily through flashbacks, readers will witness how seemingly innocent pawns corrupted by greed, power, and lust may invariably become vipers double-crossing one another with a vengeance.
With few exceptions, Last Seen at Lapaz’s villains convey realistic personality flaws vs. serving as genre caricatures. Quartey’s impressive writing talent is apparent when Femi’s sordid employers finally express compassion, let alone a shocked conscience. It makes their horrified reaction in a late scene seem plausible. The same applies to the self-involved Femi and how his complicated personality infects others, like Ngozi. More so, flashbacks depict Femi as caring and seemingly benevolent while his flashy present-day incarnation is shallow and often despicable towards others.
Along with the protagonist’s appeal, the other best asset of Last Seen at Lapaz are richly-constructed guest characters supplying the plot’s mystery, along with some unpredictable twists. Though not as slickly-produced as Veronica Mars, this novel should make one want to read more of Emma Djan’s casework – preferably in a less repulsive whodunnit.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES:
Quartey provides the following (in chronological order):
- A map displaying West African migratory routes into Europe through Niger and Libya;
- His author’s note readily warns readers that scenes in this fictional story are bleak. Quartey states that sequences are based on accounts from West African migrants and sex workers in Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana.
- The cast of characters alphabetized by first name;
- A glossary for translating Ghanaian terminology/slang used by the characters;
- A second glossary for Nigerian Pidgin (slang) terminology; and
- The book concludes with the author’s acknowledgements and gratitude.
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 7½ Stars
