Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Alexander of the Ashanti is an historical fiction novel written by Ken Frazier. Frazier, a toxicologist and pathologist, has first-hand experience with the Ashanti gained from his months spent in Ashanti villages in Ghana. A momentary lapse of vigilance in a pub had left Alexander Fraser at the mercy of his scowling and ill-tempered Portuguese captor. Alexander had met with all manner of perils since the young Scotsman’s participation in the Jacobite rising and subsequent stay in Newgate Prison. He languished there with his fellow comrades for months, not knowing whether they’d end up swinging from the hangman’s noose or grow old in the stinking cells, until an order was issued sending him to the colonies as an indentured laborer. His captor, who was convinced that Alexander was a slaver and thus a source of competition, found it hard to fathom how a prisoner bound for the colonies had ended up in Akrokerri, in Guinea Propria. Alexander realized that his survival depended upon his ability to convince the violence-prone man that he was indeed no threat, not a slaver, but instead a miner trying to earn enough gold to pay his passage back to Scotland.

Ken Frazier’s historical fiction novel, Alexander of the Ashanti, immerses the reader in the world of the Gold Coast through Alexander’s story which spans the years 1715-1718. I was enthralled as Alexander, acting much as did Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights, seeks to keep his captor intrigued and willing to keep him alive through the stories he tells of his adventures before and after the escape from the ship bound for the colonies, and the events which landed him in Africa. I was especially fascinated by his encounters with pirates turned slavers and his later adventures as a guard for King Osei Tutu, the first Asantehene of the Federation of Tribes of the Ashanti Kingdom. But Alexander’s accounts of the small Ashanti village, whose inhabitants would become his beloved family, are the most compelling stories that the Scotsman shares. Frazier’s own time spent in Ashanti villages imbues his character’s accounts with an authenticity and poignancy that’s quite remarkable. I enjoyed reading about Alexander’s life and exploits and loved learning more about events which took place during the early 1700s, particularly the politics and social circumstances surrounding the slave trade and the impact it had on society in Guinea Propria. Alexander of the Ashanti combines meticulous attention to history with a rollicking tale of action and adventure. It’s most highly recommended.