Originally published in Mystery Readers Journal, Volume 39, Number 1 (Spring 2023).
Dr. Samuel Quarshie is the amateur detective in mysteries written by John Vectis Carew Wyllie (1914-1997) in the late 1970s. The doctor was educated at McGill University in Montreal and lived in the fictional West African country of Akhana, a newly established republic. Quarshie is an original protagonist, assimilating characteristics of both Europe and Africa. New York Times reviewer Martin Levin said:
For a book that is different, you might try Skull Still Bone by John Wyllie, which introduces a black African physician as a detective …. The plotting, though competent, is no great shakes. What makes the book unusual and interesting is its picture of contemporary black Africa – its combination of primitivism and sophistication; the place of the intelligent native in the new society; the way contemporary Africans live and think. Wyllie handles all this without being preachy or sententious. He writes well too. Skull Still Bone introduces an attractive duo (the doctor’s wife is a partner in all respects) in an exotic locale. May they thrive. (NYT, 8 June 1975)
Readers familiar with Inspector Henry Tibbett will recognize similarities between Quarshie and Tibbett. Both them were highly competent in their respective fields and reticent about their achievements. They were devoted to their wives, who traveled with them and participated in their investigations.
I read the series soon after the books were published and last year I started looking for them to re-read. I also wanted to find out more about the inspiration for Dr. Quarshie. Besides consulting online sources, Jan I. C. Wyllie, to whom the first book in the series is dedicated, kindly talked to me about his talented and versatile father. I learned that John Wyllie was born in India where his father worked on the Indian Railway system during the Raj. He returned to England to attend school and stayed with his paternal grandparents during breaks. His grandfather, William Lionel Wyllie, R.A., the pre-eminent painter of maritime art, was a profound influence. At his grandfather’s urging, Wyllie spent four years in the British merchant marine. He hated it.
During World War II he served six years in the RAF, three of them in a Japanese prison camp. Jan Wyllie shared with me the following link to a video he posted to YouTube that described some of his father’s experiences in the camp. The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnbxNxmC71s
The video also mentions his father’s friendship with T. H. White, author of The Once and Future King. White encouraged and mentored Wyllie in his writing, who incorporated his wartime experience into his first novels.
After the war employment was hard to find in England and Wyllie emigrated to Canada, where he worked as a publicist and as a journalist. A deeply principled man, he resigned as a marketing manager for the Canadian tobacco manufacturers when the medical evidence about the dangers of smoking began to emerge in the mid-1950s.
Jan Wyllie talked about his father’s reporting on the struggle for civil rights in the United States. (See background here: History.com/Little Rock). An internet search turned up multiple references to an article that Wyllie wrote called Conversations in the South, dated March 1959. I located a copy in the papers of Governor Orval E. Faubus, held in the University of Arkansas archives. I can only imagine how broad the impact of Wyllie’s newscast for Station CBE in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, had to have been for the governor in Arkansas to hear about it. Jan Wyllie said that his father was a firm supporter of the civil rights movement and it shows in this news script, which is too long to post here.
Sometime in the 1960s Wyllie accepted a job with the British Red Cross to set up maternal and child health clinics in West Africa. I was unable to obtain more information about his work for the BRC. After that he worked for the American Friends Service Committee from 1969 to 1972, running the AFSC’s International Dialogues in West Africa. The AFSC archivist generously sent me a copy of some reports; they are illuminating.
Wyllie set up conferences on education, in which about two dozen representatives of various African nations participated. These conferences were several days in duration and Wyllie had the opportunity to become well acquainted with the participants. Part of each report is the personal impression Wyllie had of each one and how effective they were in their roles. He had a number of perceptive comments. He also described a few of the female representatives as “decorative”. These meetings must have been contentious at times, because Wyllie mentions the skill of some of the participants in calming disagreements.
I suspect that the character of Dr. Quarshie was based on the people Wyllie met here, perhaps especially Shima Gyoh, Surgeon and Registrar of Kaduna General Hospital in Nigeria. Wyllie said about him: “….a very sensitive and serious individual…. he is a person who has been able to find a good balance between the two worlds which have contributed to his education and his personality.” Wyllie and Danniel Mbanjock, Director of a training institute in Cameroun, established a special rapport. Mbanjock advised Wyllie after the conference that he found a new son upon his return home and that the infant would be christened Mbanjock Wyllie Eric. Wyllie said that participant Mamadou Moussa is “most intelligent and charming” while another conference organizer referred to his “wonderful balancing of Europeanness and Africanness.”
When Wyllie returned to Canada he folded his experiences in Africa into the Quarshie series, which had a respectable run of eight titles via Doubleday. Jan Wyllie said his father wrote the books long-hand in his bath and his mother typed the manuscripts. This story amused me because I wrote my English literature papers in the bath when I was in undergraduate school. Clearly water is a creative environment.
Wyllie was deeply disappointed that the books were not more successful. It certainly isn’t because reviews weren’t good. The New York Times also liked the third book. Newgate Callendar, who called Quarshie “an attractive addition to international crimesolvers”, said about To Catch a Viper:
Wyllie is a Canadian author who has lived for many years in West Africa and his identification with the country and its people comes through strongly. With considerable skill, he juxtaposes new and old Africa…. Wyllie has not attempted a travelogue, nor is he ever didactic; but the reader can get a surprising amount of knowledge about contemporary Africa from this book. (NYT, 1 May 1977)
Jan Wyllie told me that his father’s goal was to describe modern Africa and that the mystery was the mechanism to convey the information. Judging by Callendar’s statements, that goal was reached.
After the series ended Wyllie did not attempt to write another one. Instead he became a reader and editor for the Heinemann African Writers Series. AWS was an imprint of Heinemann International that published work by African authors. It was known for producing quality books at low prices and giving a voice to authors who otherwise would not have been acknowledged. His son said that Wyllie took great pleasure in shepherding these books into print.
The Quarshie mysteries are accessible on the secondary market; I wish someone would re-issue them. They are significant for their insight into race and for the realistic depiction of newly independent African countries struggling to find their feet and their national identities. Wyllie’s papers are with his son, who I hope will find time to write or commission the much-needed biography of his remarkable father.
See a complete bibliography of John Wyllie’s books at the following link. The first four books listed are not crime fiction. http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/john-wyllie.htm.