The Kwinkan

The unnamed narrator of this wry and witty satire by Australian Aborigine novelist Mudrooroo ( Master of the Ghost Dreaming ) is an avaricious businessman, a failed politician and a bungling diplomat-cum-spy. Reduced to a clerk's job in Canberra, he sees everyone as conspiring against him. When a writer, gathering information for a biography of Aborigine detective Dr. Watson Holmes Jackamara, comes to interview him, the narrator can't resist pouring out the story of his life and the plots against him. After losing his bid for the legislature, he is sent to a tiny South Pacific island group about to gain its independence from Great Britain. His mission is to gather intelligence, to act as a counterweight to a no-nonsense businesswoman named Miss Tamada, whose Japanese corporation is making considerable inroads there, and to position Australia as the new power in the region. Unfortunately, things go awry from the beginning when the narrator fabricates a ridiculous cover story for his presence. To complicate matters further, he falls for the beautiful but depraved Carla, a member of the colony's rather barmy ruling family. This novel is a romp that disarmingly takes on the forces of neo-colonialism shaping the Pacific today. (Feb.)