Red Dirt Blue Lights – 2025 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.
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. 
Red Dirt Blue Lights – An Historical Fiction by Tess Merlin was launched at Avid Reader on 24th May 2025 with a moving conversation between Tess, Uncle Eric Law AM and Poppy Gee. Tears, laughter, curiosity and respect contributed to a memorable afternoon. Thank you to everyone who came and offered support.
