{"id":6473,"date":"2025-06-06T08:27:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T15:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6473"},"modified":"2025-06-07T04:30:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T11:30:42","slug":"nilima-rao-a-shipwreck-in-fiji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/nilima-rao-a-shipwreck-in-fiji\/","title":{"rendered":"Nilima Rao: A Shipwreck in Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sgt. Akal Singh #2<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This series takes the reader on a journey to the complex society of Fiji in 1915.\u00a0 At that time the island was naturally populated by Fijians, but there also by many Indians who had been imported as indentured labor, some of whom chose to stay on the island after working through their service.\u00a0 Since the islands were a colony at the time, there\u2019s the added ingredient of the British overlords, the mixture sometimes finding a hard time cohering.<\/p>\n

Main character, Sergeant Akal Singh, is stationed in the capitol, Suva, but he\u2019s come to Fiji from Hong Kong (originally from the Punjab) somewhat under a cloud.\u00a0 He\u2019s still on a short leash as far as his commanding officer is concerned and given what he views as a simple babysitting job.\u00a0 He\u2019s to escort two Australian ladies aiming to clean out the home of their brother and uncle, the newspaper editor in Suva on the island of Ovalau. He\u2019s also to check out one Constable Kumar, an incredibly young, inexperienced, and slightly hysterical young man who claims to have seen Germans on the island, which, as world war was raging at the time, is something to be investigated. Accompanying Akal is his second in command, a native of Ovalau named Taviti.<\/p>\n

When they land at the town of Levuka, the two men conduct the ladies to their hotel and head to the police station where they meet young Kumar, who tells them the Germans were seen in one of the local shops.\u00a0 When they arrive at the store to question the owner, they find the store ransacked and the owner dead, fatally flogged with a whip.\u00a0 They find a few clues, including a puzzle box, which Singh takes back to town to the police station.<\/p>\n

As far as the plot goes, there are many threads, with the Germans making an appearance, as well as another death, and the revelation that the two Australian women have come to the island for far more than cleaning out a house. Singh must be on his best and most formal behavior around the women, and when he accompanies Taviti to the village where he\u2019s grown up, he finds he must be another culture\u2019s idea of best behavior as the Fijians welcome him as a guest.\u00a0 It turns out Taviti\u2019s uncle has sent him to Suva to learn worldly political skills, with the expectation that he will ultimately return home and become the chief of the village.\u00a0 Taviti is uncomfortable with this destiny, though he is also delighted to be back home in a familiar environment.<\/p>\n

Even though I felt the plot in this installment was a bit all over the place, what charmed me about the first book in the series (A Disappearance in Fiji<\/em>), the strong sense of place, charmed me in this book as well.\u00a0 Fiji in 1915 is an unusual mise en sc\u00e8ne, and the descriptions of the village customs, from weaving mats to cooking in an underground pit, are lovingly and vividly described.\u00a0 The tension Kaviti feels about coming home after being away is beautifully portrayed, as is Akal\u2019s experience in the village as an outsider.<\/p>\n

Reading the book, I wished for a bit more of Akal, who I loved as a character in the first novel, as well as a larger helping of the dashing Dr. Holmes, who does make a late, if brief, appearance in the proceedings.\u00a0 I ultimately enjoyed the read but I yearned for a plot that served up some of the bittersweet aspects of the first novel.\u00a0 This is a more straight up traditionally told story, and while there\u2019s not a thing wrong with that, I ultimately just hoped for a touch more sting in the tale.\u00a0\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sgt. Akal Singh #2 This series takes the reader on a journey to the complex society of Fiji in 1915.\u00a0 At that time the island was naturally populated by Fijians, but there also by many Indians who had been imported as indentured labor, some of whom chose to stay on the island after working through … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2149,2147,1214,1276,2148,664],"class_list":["post-6473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1915-fiji","tag-a-shipwreck-in-fiji","tag-nilima-rao","tag-robin-agnew","tag-sgt-akal-singh","tag-soho-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6475,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473\/revisions\/6475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}