Enter the redoubtable Captain Terrapin, no-nonsense master of the Cullion and the son of a Tasmanian convict, whose velvet-draped cabin is redolent of a Turkish seraglio. Here he has installed a grand piano − which he plays − plus a phonograph for favourite arias of Melba and Caruso. Melanesia is their trading ground: glass beads and calico for native artefacts.

Vivid characterisation and a breathless narrative pace create a riveting tale of fragile indigenous communities in pristine places vanishing before the febrile raptor-breath of capitalism. Argus, the Melanesian caught between cultures, is especially poignant. While the drama of the South Seas is stirring, evocations of Chicago surprise and delight: descriptions such as ‘... more than anything the city contained Owen’s father – in the awnings and cornices, in the weary admiralty of janitors smoking on their building stoops’; and at Owen’s wedding: ‘The people said Amen – none louder than the old demolitionists, both of them suddenly bright-eyed, raising their voices as if a dynamite fuse had been lit.’

Born in the Blue Mountains and raised in Sydney, Smith currently lives in Texas. Bright and Distant Shores is his third novel.