About Tess Merlin
Tess Merlin is an ex-police officer and author. Her first novel RANK was written from her lived experiences as a policewoman and as someone with personal experience of the trauma of being stalked. She has written and published training resources as a trainer, facilitator and language teacher. She now writes adult fiction and middle grade fiction.
Biography
Tess Merlin: Author
Tess Merlin is an ex-police officer and author. Her first novel Rank was written from her lived experiences as a policewoman and as someone with personal experience of the trauma of being stalked. She has written and published training resources as a trainer, facilitator and language teacher. She now also writes adult fiction and middle grade fiction.
Her second work, Red Dirt Blue Lights, is an historical fiction which tells of her time as a policewoman in the 1970s and the prevailing, disturbing divide between Police and Indigenous people. Red Dirt Blue Lights was shortlisted as a Finalist in the 2025 Queensland Literary Awards.
In 2023, Tess was awarded second place in the Thunderbolt Non-fiction Short Story awards and is regularly part of writing competition judging panels.
Tess is a mother of two and a keen linguist in four languages. She has a passion for the English language, which she has taught in a variety of environments, to both adults and children.
She writes from the peaceful shores of Gubbi Gubbi country, where she pretends to be a farmer, with several chickens and an impressive veggie garden. She believes in continuously attempting new challenges—most recently bouldering and learning Auslan.
She regularly speaks on author panels and runs workshops in libraries and bookstores.
Drawing on her expertise and critical reception for her work, Tess now offers Editorial and Proofreading Services.
Awards
Awards received by Tess Merlin
Queensland Literary Awards Finalist 2025
Red Dirt Blue Lights was selected as a finalist for the Courier Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award.
Judges’ comments: Set in 1970s rural Queensland around the Indigenous community of Cherbourg, a young and inexperienced policewoman juggles her responsibilities with her sensitivities towards the harsh realities of discrimination, racism and authoritarianism. Well researched and drawing on the real-life experiences of the author, this novella received close scrutiny and approbation by Aboriginal Elder Uncle Eric Law AM.
New England Thunderbolt Prize: Highly Commended
Judges comments: A well-crafted piece with an original approach – offering a vignette of the intractable issues surrounding Indigenous suffering seen through the eyes of a rookie, female, non-Indigenous police officer. The shifting points of view offers insights to the societal and personal impacts on both sides of the equation, and illustrates to what degree empathy and carefully nuanced judgement are encouraged or not in the policing of disadvantaged Australians. The choice of language – simple, strong, clear – works well here in creating a marked contrast with the complexities the piece describes.
Gold Coast Writers Short Story Competition 2023: Longlist
Tess’s short story I See You was longlisted for the Short Story competition responding to the prompt “A Street in Your Town.”
Critical reviews
Reviews for Red Dirt Blue Lights
Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times Booklist Review, 28/11/25
Tess Merlin has written a nonfiction work, RANK, about her time as a policewoman in 1970s Queensland, and the glaring disparities and cultural disconnect between police and Indigenous communities. Her slender novella, Red Dirt Blue Lights is fictionalised, but it has the kind of directness, humility and empathy that allows it to serve as an important act of truth-telling. Told from multiple perspectives, the narrative comes steeped in the history of Cherbourg – an Indigenous community on Barambah Creek in Wakka Wakka Country, near Kingaroy, the hometown of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Jemma is a young Aboriginal woman torn between romantic love and familial and cultural obligation. She must decide whether to leave Cherbourg, and her ageing grandmother Merinda, to live with her boyfriend. Meanwhile, Tess, a naive police recruit posted to the area, witnesses first-hand Indigenous resilience, and how racist assumptions, ignorance, and a legacy of intergenerational trauma reverberate with continued injustice.
It’s a modest book, but an honest one; the author forges a firm alliance between imagination, historical research, cultural consultation, and the testimonial quality of lived experience.
Cass Moriarty (Author) Review
RED DIRT BLUE LIGHTS (AndAlso Books 2025) is a slim novel by ex-policewoman Tess Merlin that provides an important insight into life in the community of Cherbourg in the 1970’s.
The novella is prefaced by a Foreword from Uncle Eric Law AM and informed by Merlin’s past experience as a Queensland police officer, and her knowledge-gathering visit to the Ration Shed Museum at Cherbourg (which sounds fascinating).
As Uncle Eric says, to learn about the history of Cherbourg is ‘to change trauma into wisdom’…
With themes of aging, passion, longing, Home, Country, conflict, intergenerational trauma and familial responsibility, this book explores the tragic history of this country’s treatment of our First Nations’ people, the terrible conditions and racism that existed in the 1970’s (a precursor to what continues today in many places), and the remarkable connection the characters have to their land, their ancestors, and their history.
While the book traverses uncomfortable and complex themes (even in such a short novella), it also offers understanding and a story of hope and optimism, demonstrating that even in the most difficult circumstances, the human spirit can overcome momentous hurdles, and to show the courage and unrelenting commitment to self-determination of First Nations’ people.
Poppy Gee (Author) Review
It’s not often I read a book and then drive three hours to see where it’s set but I was utterly compelled to visit The Ration Shed Museum at Cherbourg and learn more after reading the beautiful and confronting Red Dirt Blue Lights by Tess Merlin.
Happy Valley Book Reviews
A story that puts the human into humanity. Reiterating that respect and compassion alongside empathy can make a difference and build bridges… Heartfelt moments adorned this beautiful story that has a clear and loud message.
Critical reviews
Reviews for Rank
Reader Review
A great book! Rank is a tale of two timelines. Tess in the modern moment – a divorcee with grown kids ready to try again to find love, and Tess in the past – an ambitious young police woman in a police force with a well earned reputation for corruption and misogyny.
Will Tess’ past trauma in the line of duty rob her of the chance to find happiness in the present? Fans of Matthew Condon’s Three Crooked Kings series will definitely enjoy Rank.
Reader Review
It was hard to put your book “Rank” down. The way you devised your chapters with the story in the present and then the story in the past drove the motivations, memories and context of the whole narrative forward. I particularly liked your chapter endings. You nailed the development of suspense!
Sometimes one story became so scary that I would breathe a sigh of relief to be back in the other story at a much calmer point.
– Julie M.
Reader Review
From the time I started to read the book I was hooked. Tess Merlin takes us on a journey of suspense to the last page. It had me turning the pages to try and work out just who was the villain.
I highly recommend this book to read it also helps to be aware of the types of dangers out there and to be aware of our surroundings.
Reader Review
‘Somehow, I see my way through the cobwebs of past images mixed with the new image of Marcus standing with his phone directed at me. An image which has now been branded into my brain along with the horrors of the past. I hear the shutter click, over and over in my mind.’
This story follows Tess, who now retired from the police runs her own business as a florist and is looking at exploring the world of online dating – but an online presence makes her nervous that someone might track her down, someone in particular that was responsible for a harrowing experience as a female police officer in a small rural town in Queensland.
I loved reading it and was honoured to be able to read early drafts for feedback. For fans of thrillers, crime fiction and those looking for some insight into the lives of women in the police force.
I’m giving it five glowing stars… available now.
@tk.reads
Reader Review
I was absorbed and intrigued throughout…
@happyvalley_booksread
This was a frightening and alarming story that had me in suspense… Highly recommended.
@bianca_mal_
Congratulations Tess on writing an entertaining story that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
@philippakayewriter