TSM: Your recent debut novel, A Disappearance in Fiji, is a historical fiction detective novel revolving around an Indian police sergeant and mysterious disappearances in British-colonized Fiji. Can you tell us a little bit about the book and your writing process?
NR: A Disappearance in Fiji is set in colonial Fiji in 1914. This is a time when the British are taking Indians to Fiji by the shipload as cheap labour for the cane fields, under exploitative indentured servitude contracts. The story follows Sergeant Akal Singh, who has been exiled to the backwater colony in disgrace after a mistake has derailed his promising police career in Hong Kong. Akal wants to get some wins under his belt, get his career restarted and get out of Fiji, but his inspector general has side lined him with a dead-end case.
An Indian indentured servant woman goes missing from a plantation, just as the indentured servitude program is under scrutiny for alleged abuses. Akal is sent out to investigate and told to close the case quickly and quietly. This politically charged case could either redeem him or sink his career permanently. When he arrives at the plantation, faced with the hostility of the white plantation owners and the fear of the Indian indentured servants, Akal quickly see his hopes for redemption fading.
TSM: What initially drew you to these genres and this premise for A Disappearance in Fiji?
NR: My great grandparents went to Fiji under the indentured servitude program. I really wanted to write something set in colonial Fiji, focussed on the experience of the Indian indentured labourers. I read fiction and I’ve read and watched a lot of crime in my time, and it seemed an obvious fit.
My initial premise for the story was a dual chronology with female protagonists in the current timeline and the past. My protagonist in the past was a young Indian girl, an indentured servant. Except I kept getting stuck – how would this young girl have had any agency, any time or freedom of movement, to investigate a crime. As I struggled to work through this, I came across references to some Sikh police officers who had been sent from Hong Kong to Fiji to help bolster the Fijian police force, which was in its infancy. Sergeant Akal Singh sprang, at least partially formed, into my head and I restarted the story from there.
TSM: As evidenced by your novel’s setting and characters, your identity as a Fijian Indian Australian has greatly influenced your writing. What would you say is the most exciting part of telling a story that speaks to your cultural identity and heritage?
NR: We moved to Australia when I was three, to north Queensland, where there weren’t too many other Fijian Indians. I grew up really distanced from my cultural heritage. If you had asked me well into my thirties, I would have called myself Australian and would have been annoyed if you wanted to probe further. But a trip to India changed my perspective. After witnessing the depth and breadth of poverty there, I became intrigued about how my distant ancestors (I didn’t even know how distant) escaped that cycle of poverty. The whole process of researching and imagining the world that my great parents lived has led me to embrace my complicated cultural heritage and has brought me closer to my family.
TSM: Is there anything else that serves as a major inspiration or influence on your work? Any specific books, authors, or any unique source you found yourself turning to?
NR: I was a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith’s “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” books, so when Taz, my editor at Soho, told me that she had managed to get the book in front of him and that he had like it, I was floored. Just speechless. Another series which I drew a lot of inspiration from was Colin Cotterill’s “Dr. Siri Paiboun” series, which is set in Laos when the communist party came into power. The combination that is common to both series, of an interesting time and place with a thread of humor, was what I was aiming for.
TSM: What did the research process for this book look like? Was there anything unexpected that you discovered, or any unique source you found yourself turning to for information?
NR: At the beginning of each chapter, I have included a snippet from the Fiji Times. Most of these are verbatim, albeit with dates changed. I discovered that the National Archives in Suva had all the old Fiji Times on microfilm, including the early 1900’s. This was a huge source of inspiration, in understanding the daily life of Fiji. 
TSM: A Disappearance in Fiji is going to be the first in a series. Was this always going to be the case? Or did you find somewhere in the writing process that you weren’t done with certain characters, plot lines, or other aspects, and simply had to write more about them in new stories?
NR: I knew there was a possibility of a series, and I knew what the overall narrative arc was for the stories and for Akal. What didn’t know was what the mysteries would be for any subsequent novels. During my research, I came across a story of a German privateer named Felix von Luckner, who was captured in Fiji during WW1. He is an incredibly romantic figure, a swashbuckling pirate of noble origins, with stories of derring-do sufficient that the Germans have since made a television series about him. I knew I wanted him in a story, so I built book two, “A Shipwreck in Fiji” around Felix von Luckner’s capture in Fiji.
TSM: Was there any one principle or piece of advice you tried to adhere to during your writing process?
NR: I can’t think of anything specific!
TSM: Do you have any projects in the works that we can look forward to after A Disappearance in Fiji?
NR: I’m currently working on the sequel – “A Shipwreck in Fiji”.