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Death of a Lake

Eight hundred kilometres from the sea, Lake Otway is dying. Heat, drought, and thirst-crazed animals take their toll. When Ray Gillen, lucky lottery winner, went for a swim one night and never came back, some thought it was an accident, or was it murder? As the water level drops, five men and two women wait beside the shrinking lake – for the body, the money, or neither. And watching it all, Bony… Death of a Lake is as intense and unremitting story as Upfield ever wrote. It should be, for it is very close to Upfield's personality … being the real Albermarle Station where Upfield was first hired as a cook in the 1920s and where he began his writing career … In a hut at Wheeler's Well Upfield was inspired to write his Bony after a visit by Upfield's friend tracker Leon Wood. – from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne. Bony – a unique figure among top-flight detectives – BBC

An Author Bites the Dust

Arthur W. Upfield

A cat… a ping-pong ball… a drunken gardener… With these slight clues to go on Detective-Inspector Bonaparte investigates the mysterious death of famous author, Mervyn Blake, who dies an agonising death late one night in his writing room. But how did he die? No one knows. No one that is until Bony's acute observation of human nature uncovers the murderer – and the method used to kill Blake. One of the few Bonaparte mysteries not set in the outback, reveals Upfield at his best and most ingenious. Napoleon Bonaparte – my best detective. – Daily Express

The Devil's Steps

Arthur W. Upfield

On special assignment with Military Intelligence, Detective-Inspector Bonaparte leaves his familiar Australian outback environment for Melbourne and a nearby mountain resort. Although out of his element with city people, Bony displays his characteristic skills to interpret some puzzling clues in the search for a wily killer… The complex half-caste Bony is, I think, my favourite fictional detective of the past twenty years. – Anthony Boucher, The New York Times

Death of a Swagman

Arthur W. Upfield

A cypher that looked like a child's game of noughts-and-crosses; a strip of hessian bag; the rhythmic clanging sound of the turning windmill suddenly breaking the silence of the night; the minister who seemed out of place as a churchman: these were some of the more puzzling aspects of the case of the murdered swagman noticed by the keen eyes of Robert Burns, alias Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, alias "Bony". Our distinctive student of violence arrives incognito at Merino, in western New South Wales, and, as a first move, provokes the local sergeant to lock him up. The method in Bony's madness is that while serving a semi-detention sentence and being made to paint the police station, he wears the best of all disguises… Here again is a first-rate Upfield mystery, made warm by humour, by the background characters and his portrayal of the natural background scene. – The Age Upfield at his best. – Adelaide News

The Mystery of Swordfish Reef

Arthur W. Upfield

An intriguing case for Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte begins on a calm October day in an Australian seaside near Bermagui. Three men set out to sea for a day's fishing… and do not return. Despite intensive searches, no trace of the men or their boat is found, until, weeks later, a passing trawler hauls in a gruesome catch – the head of one of the missing fishermen. It is quite clear that its owner was murdered with a pistol shot. But by whom, and why, is for Bony to find out. A thriller with a new kind of thrill. – Sheffield Morning Telegraph

The Bone is Pointed

Arthur W. Upfield

Jeffrey Anderson was a big man with a foul temper – a sadist and an ugly drunk. When his horse The Black Emperor, an animal as mean as its owner, came home riderless, no one cared. And no one cared when no trace of the man could be found. But five months later, Detective-Inspector Bonaparte is called in – and he is determined to solve the mystery. With his usual tenacity he takes up the cold trail. What happened to Anderson, to his hat, to his stockwhip, to his horse's neck-rope? Bony must rely on his eyes and his wits to help him find the answers, for the local inhabitants, both black and white, are keeping their own secrets. Bony – a unique figure among top-flight detectives – BBC

Winds of Evil

Arthur W. Upfield

When Bonaparte sets out to investigate two bizarre murders near the dusty little outback town of Carie, all the odds are against him. The crimes were committed a year before, the scent cold, and any clues that may have survived have been confused by a ham-fisted city policeman. As Bony follows the trail he is first threatened and then attacked by the mysterious murderer. It's a case that will tax his ingenuity to the limit… if he lives to see it through. Excellent set up for a story, good cast of characters, perplexing confusion of suspects, and perceptive unravelling of tangled threads. – Kirkus Review

Mr Jelly's Business

Arthur W. Upfield

Murder down under. The car lies wrecked and abandoned near the world's longest fence, the "rabbit-proof fence" in the wheat belt of Western Australia. There is no sign of its owner. Has George Loftus simply decamped, for reasons of his own? Or was it murder? Bonaparte suspects the worst and is determined to find the body – and the murderer. This novel is filled with Upfield's own philosophy about what creates murderers. We also find out a lot about Aboriginal tracking methods, as well as more information about Bony's family background. – Mysteries in Paradise

Wings Above the Diamantina

Arthur W. Upfield

The discovery of a stolen red monoplane on the dry, flat bottom of Emu Lake meant many things for different folks. For Elizabeth Nettlefold, the chance to nurse its strangely ill meant renewed purpose in life. For Dr Knowles, brilliant physician and town drunk, it meant the revival of a romantic dream. For some it meant a murder plan gone awry, and for Bonaparte, it meant one of the toughest cases of his career. Bony – a unique figure among top-flight detectives. – BBC

The Sands of Windee

Arthur W. Upfield

Why had Luke Marks driven specially out to Windee? Had he been murdered or had he, as the local police believed, wandered away from his car and been overwhelmed in a dust-storm? When Bony noticed something odd in the background of a police photograph, he begins to piece together the secrets of the sands of Windee. Here is the original background to the infamous Snowy Rowles murder trial. Napoleon Bonaparte my best detective. – Daily Mail