KWEI QUARTEY BIO
Kwei Quartey is a crime fiction writer and physician living in Pasadena, California. Having practiced medicine for more than 20 years while simultaneously working as a writer, he has attained noteworthy achievements in both fields. Kwei balances the two professions by dedicating the early morning hours to writing before beginning a day in his clinic.
He was born in Ghana, West Africa, to a Ghanaian father and black American mother, both of whom were lecturers at the University of Ghana. Kwei describes how his family's home was full of hundreds of books, both fiction and nonfiction, which inspired him to write novelas as early as the age of eight or nine. By then, Kwei was certain he wanted to be an author.
But his interests shifted by the time he was a teenager: he now wanted to be a doctor. Kwei began on a science-to-medicine track in secondary school. After the death of his father, Kwei's mother decided to return to the United States. By then, Kwei had already begun medical school in Ghana. Getting into a medical school in the US wasn't easy, but Kwei successfully gained admission to Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C.
It was after graduation from his residency training that Kwei Quartey returned to his love of writing. He went to a UCLA extension course in creative writing, and wrote two novels while in a writing group that met every Wednesday evening. But it would be many years before Kwei would create the Inspector Darko Dawson series.
As a crime fiction writer, Kwei made the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List in 2009. The following year, the G.O.G. National Book Club awarded him the title of Best Male Author. The five Inspector Darko Dawson novels, set in Ghana, are WIFE OF THE GODS, CHILDREN OF THE STREET, MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS, GOLD OF OUR FATHERS, and DEATH BY HIS GRACE.
Two novels, KAMILA and DEATH AT THE VOYAGER HOTEL (ebook) are non-Darko books.
Kwei says he tries to go through everything Inspector Darko Dawson, his protagonist, experiences. For instance, in MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS, Kwei underwent training to enable him to travel on a chopper taking oil workers from shore to the deep sea rig, which is what occurrs in the story. The training includes how to escape from a helicopter that has crashed in the ocean. Trainees, seated in a mock chopper cabin, must get out of the cabin after it is submerged in a deep pool and then inverted. Kwei did NOT do very well at this, although he managed to pass the course by the skin of his teeth.
Watch the trailer for Kwei Quartey's his next novel, DEATH BY HIS GRACE, due out August 29, 2017 at http://bit.ly/2lKxfqY
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