If you’re looking for an exotic debut mystery that explores the evils of colonialism, you can’t go wrong with Nilima Rao’s A Disappearance in Fiji. Rao’s Author’s Note explains her background as a Fijian Indian Australian. Even with her background, she explores Fiji’s history through the eyes of an outsider, an Indian Punjabi Sikh, police sergeant Akal Singh.

Singh is only twenty-five. He was a rising star in the police force in Hong Kong until he made a mistake that cost him his future there. So, he was sent to Fiji, a colonial outpost for the British empire in 1914. He knows little of the coolies, the Indians who indentured themselves to sugar plantations for five years. When a woman named Kunti disappears, Singh’s boss sees it as a chance to investigate while making Akal a possible scapegoat if things go wrong. Inspector-general Thurstrom would have ignored the disappearance. Coolies disappear all the time. But, a Catholic missionary tells the local newspaper that Kunti was kidnapped. With the delegation for Indian Relations with Fiji visiting, Thurstrom knows they’ll be scrutinized to see how the administration treats a crime against an indentured servant. So, Akal Singh is assigned the case.

Singh doesn’t know his way around Fiji, so he travels with Dr. Robert Holmes, a physician who treats the workers on the plantations and towns. When Henry and Susan Parkins, owners of the plantation where Kunti worked, treat Singh as if he was just another Indian indentured servant, it’s Dr. Holmes who steps in. He says if Singh is expected to sleep and eat in coolie housing, he will too. Henry Parkins immediately finds another place for the two men to stay overnight, but Akal begins to see how Indians are treated on the plantations. He also begins to doubt his own beliefs about India’s caste system. When he learns how women are mistreated, Singh knows he has a problem on his hands. His boss is not going to be happy with Singh’s report back about the case of the missing woman.

Rao successfully combines the beauty of Fiji with the brutality of the plantation system of using indentured laborers, and the abuse of women. Readers of Abir Mukherjee’s Wyndham and Banerjee mysteries might want to check out the first in this new series set in colonial Fiji. It’s an excellent mystery, and a lesson in history.

A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao. Soho Press, 2023. ISBN 9781641284284 (hardcover), 288p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received an ARC from the publisher, with no guarantee of a positive review.