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Book Reviewed by:A charming and atmospheric debut mystery featuring a 25-year-old Indian police sergeant investigating a missing persons case in colonial Fiji
1914, Fiji: Akal Singh, 25, would rather be anywhere but this tropical paradise—or, as he calls it, "this godforsaken island." After a promising start to his police career in Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and grumpy, Akal plods through his work and dreams of getting back to Hong Kong or his native India.
When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fiji's newspapers scream "kidnapping," the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case. Akal, eager to achieve redemption, agrees—but soon finds himself far more invested than he could have expected.
Now not only is he investigating a disappearance, but also confronting the brutal realities of the indentured workers' existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fiji—along with his own thorny notions of personhood and caste. Early interrogations of the white plantation owners, Indian indentured laborers, and native Fijians yield only one conclusion: there is far more to this case than meets the eye.
Nilima Rao's sparkling debut mystery offers an unflinching look at the evils of colonialism, even as it brims with wit, vibrant characters, and fascinating historical detail.
CHAPTER ONE
"THE NIGHT PROWLER WAS out again last night."
This portent of doom first thing in the morning made Sergeant Akal Singh once again forget to duck as he walked through the door of the Totogo Police Station in central Suva.
"Arre yaar," he muttered with feeling. In the six months he had been in Fiji, Akal had knocked his head on that very door any number of times. It wasn't a particularly low door, but his turban added inches to his already formidable height. Akal smoothed his hands over the turban, cursing the lack of mirror in the sparsely furnished front room of the station, or indeed any of the police buildings. One had been ordered for the European officers' barracks, but the ship from Sydney had been delayed. There was no talk of ordering one for the Indian and Fijian barracks.
"Is my turban correct?" he asked Taviti. The Fijian corporal was manning the front desk, and had been the one to deliver the news about Akal's current nemesis.
"Ah, I think it's all right, sir...
Rao develops the mystery of Kunti's disappearance slowly, building up tension through the racist scorn Singh endures from the plantation owners, Henry and Susan Parkins, as well as his own biases. Singh is a soft-spoken observer in the uncomfortable exchanges Rao so realistically depicts. As he moves between the worlds of the planter aristocracy with its overt racism and the quiet, bleak despair of the workers, Singh senses that Kunti's disappearance may portend a darker reality on the Parkins plantation. The abuses of colonialism are on full display in the novel's depiction of indentured Indian women's experiences, which force Singh to grapple with the ripples of the system's evil...continued
Full Review
(650 words)
(Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski).
Alexander McCall Smith, bestselling author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series
This is an utterly charming novel. The setting is exotic and the characters are intriguing. Nilima Rao is an author well worth discovering." Ovidia Yu, author of the Aunty Lee Singaporean Mysteries
A poignant and entertaining read...Sergeant Akal Singh is a charmingly imperfect and captivating protagonist. I love Akal and hope we'll be seeing a lot more of him! Sujata Massey, Agatha Award–winning author of The Widows of Malabar Hill
Meet Sergeant Akal Singh, the complex and charming hero of a thoroughly original mystery set in 1914 Fiji. Fans of Golden Age mysteries will relish this debut novel by a compelling new talent, Nilima Rao. More, please!
The country and archipelago of Fiji is in the South Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,300 miles north of Auckland, New Zealand and 2700 miles southwest of Hawaii. It consists of more than 300 islands, about 100 of which are inhabited. The largest island, at approximately 66 miles long and 91 miles wide, is Viti Levu, or "Great Fiji." The country's capital of Suva—where part of the action takes place in Nilima Rao's novel A Disappearance in Fiji—is located on its southeast coast.
At the time of the novel's events—1914—Fiji had been a British Crown Colony for 40 years. A conducive climate for such high-demand products as cotton, tea and sugar made it an initially attractive target for planters looking to raise cash...
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