A SHIPWRECK IN FIJI

Multiple mysteries challenge a dogged police sergeant in colonial Fiji.

It’s 1915. Despite several successes during his brief tenure with the Fiji police department, Sgt. Akal Singh still seeks acceptance from the community and his superiors. A cricket match is both an illustration of this sharply segregated society and an opportunity for Akal to ingratiate himself. He has still not caught the criminal who first brought him to Fiji more than a year ago, a serial rapist known as the Night Prowler. When Inspector General Jonathan Thurstrom assigns him the task of chaperoning two Australian ladies, the sister and niece of local bigwig Hugh Clancy, Akal is painfully reminded of his censure for his past relationship with an Englishwoman in A Disappearance in Fiji (2023). Both Clancy and Thurston again dress him down for that perceived indiscretion. Meanwhile, Sanjay Lal, a store owner in sleepy Levuka, reports seeing some suspicious Germans in the area. The ladies, Mary and Katherine, accompany Akal and Constable Taviti Tukana on this assignment. When Akal arrives at the store, he finds Lal dead, the victim of a whipping. Meanwhile, Akal’s assignment with Mary and Katherine involves a cemetery search and their interest in a jewelry box found at the murder scene. An additional mystery surrounds the shipwreck of the title. The earnest Akal is a compelling protagonist, at the center of a deeply researched novel about a fascinating moment in history.

Sensitively told story of class and racial tensions during World War I, with some mystery.