Nilima Rao's Sergeant Akal Singh detective series lays bare the dark secrets of colonisation in pre WW1 Fiji. In Michael Burge's The Watchnight,  a C19th Methodist pastor is forced to become a sleuth amid the Frontier Wars in NSW. Alexandria Burnham's Swallow tells the extraordinary tale of the last man arrested for piracy in convict Australia. Claudine Tinellis asks these authors what challenges they faced in researching the colonial histories of their books, and what devices and ploys they use to keep their readers turning the page.

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