The second book in the historical series featuring Sergeant Akai Singh, A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI follows on from A DISAPPEARANCE IN FIJI. This series makes for particularly interesting reading if you're aware of the motivation behind the books, which Rao spells out in her author's notes. In this book she comments:
The short answer to 'why set a book in Fiji' is to explore my heritage. But who wants a short answer? .... I was born in Fiji of Indian descent, and my family moved to Australia when I was three. Growing up in North Queensland in the 1980s, I was focused on fitting in and didn't want to know anything about my heritage. ...
It's really worth knowing that aspect of the author's approach, as there is a really strong sense of the central character in these novels, Sergeant Singh, trying to work out his place in the world. Sent to Fiji as "punishment" for an indiscretion in Hong Kong, he's of Indian descent, with strong family connections there, as well as the connection back to Hong Kong. Arriving in Fiji, where the Indian diaspora's backstory is made up of indentured labourer's who are often poorly treated, and those that could have returned to India but didn't for various reasons. This sense of different people in a new place, there because they want, and more frequently because they can't leave, strikes a chord with him. It also has considerable resonance with current day refugee and immigrant experiences. In A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI Rao really sets out to understand the reasons for the Indian diaspora remaining in Fiji, but she also does not neglect the local Fijian First Nation's people. Again referring to the Author's Note:
In this book, I've taken a risk I wasn't brave enough to take in the first book. I've added a lot more about indigenous Fijian culture, the culture of the iTaukei (literally meaning 'owner') people. I avoided this in the first book because I was concerned about writing about a culture that I didn't feel like I was authentically in a position to talk about.
Looking back at the reading experience of A SHIPWRECK after finishing the Author's Note you can see that respect. The book doesn't ever move away from the core fundamental's of a police investigation - and a pretty confrontational one at that, as two Indian men are found dead on a tropical paradise, where Singh is ostensibly escorting a couple of English women back to the home of their brother and uncle. On the other hand, he's also searching for a small party of German's supposedly hiding out on the island, this being 1915 and wartime tensions having reached even this far. Whilst it's easy and obvious to want to blame the lurking Germans for the murders on the island, there's something else going on, with tensions within the Indian diaspora revealing themselves, and a complicated scenario of connections and pasts colliding.
Meanwhile there is tension between that party of shipwrecked Germans, trying to pass themselves off as Norwegian, and the village of Singh's sidekick Taviti Tukana, and the clash of traditional law and colonial overreach. All of which is delivered in a charming, readable, historical novel that's populated by wonderfully strong characters and a tremendous sense of place and time. It's a privilege to be taken along on the ride that is Nilima Rao's exploration of her own family background and history in such an engaging manner.
A Shipwreck in Fiji
The unlikely sighting of Germans in 1915 Fiji turns deadly in this charming follow-up to A Disappearance in Fiji.
Sergeant Akal Singh, an unwilling transplant to Fiji, is just starting to settle into his life in the capital city of Suva when he is sent to the neighbouring island of Ovalau on a series of fool's errands. First: investigate strange reports of lurking Germans, thousands of miles from the front lines of World War I. Second: chaperone two strong-willed European ladies, Mary and Katherine, on a sightseeing tour. And third: supervise the only police officer currently on Ovalau, a teenage recruit with a penchant for hysterics.
Accompanied by his friend Constable Taviti Tukana - who has come to visit his uncle, a powerful chief - Akal sets out to deal with these seemingly straightforward tasks. Instead, the two police officers become embroiled in a growing number of local controversies, among them the gruesome death of an unpopular shopkeeper and the imprisonment of a group of European sailors in Taviti's uncle's village. To add to Akal's woes, Katherine, an aspiring journalist, harbours an agenda of her own. As tensions mount, will Akal be able to keep her - and himself - out of trouble?
Nilima Rao's critically acclaimed debut, A Disappearance in Fiji (2023), was winner of the 2024 American Library Association Reading List for Mystery Fiction and appeared in multiple US best-of-year roundups (being named as an Amazon Best Debut of the Year and culture website CrimeReads' Best Historical Fiction of the Year).
This next instalment in the Sergeant Akal Singh series has all the charm and sparkle of the first book, offering fascinating historical insights into the realities of life in Fiji at the start of the twentieth century.
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