The charge transport properties of two alkali metal chalcogenide, semiconductor ternary compounds Cs2Cd3Te4 and Cs2Hg6S7, having potential as efficient high-energy radiation detectors, were investigated. A key property that determines the detector performance is the minority carrier lifetime, which was determined by measurement of photocurrent transients using pulsed laser excitation. The alkali metal chalcogenide semiconductor crystals were grown by a modified Bridgman method. The Cs2Cd3Te4 compound has a minority lifetime of 2.45 µs at 295 K, which is comparable to that of cadmium zinc telluride (CZT). The Cs2Hg6S7 showed charge trapping with decay times of 120 µs. The excellent charge transport properties of Cs2Cd3Te4 indicate that this ternary compound semiconductor should be well suited for gamma radiation detector devices that operate at room temperature.