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.

Author Biography

Nilima Rao is a Fijian Indian Australian who has always referred to herself as “culturally confused.” She has since learned that we are all confused in some way, has been published on the topic as part of the SBS Emerging Writers Competition and now feels better about the whole thing. When she isn’t writing, Nilima can be found wrangling data (the dreaded day job) or wandering around Melbourne laneways in search of the next new wine bar. A Disappearance in Fiji was her first novel.

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