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9781922473721

THE MURCHISON MURDERS

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Three murders, three perfect murders... near the rabbit-proof fence in desolate Western Australia. Perfect - except the process was exactly as described in Arthur Upfield’s crime novel The Sands of Windee (1931). It had all began in 1929, when Upfield was working on the fence and plotting a new novel featuring the Aboriginal detective, Napoleon Bonaparte. His friend George Ritchie had devised a brilliant method of disposing a body in the outback, so brilliant that Upfield offered Ritchie a pound if he could come up with a flaw in the process. On October 5 1929, Upfield, Ritchie and Snowy Rowles, the northern boundary rider for the fence, all met at the Camel Station and discussed the murder method in the forthcoming book...This is Upfield’s own account of the Snowy Rowles murder case, augmented by police photographs and Upfield’s evidence, colourised for the first time.
Arthur Upfield was born in Gosport in 1890 and arrived in Australia in 1911, working near Broken Hill as a rouseabout and cook. He enlisted in 1914 and was allotted to Light Horse Brigade train and served from Gallipoli to Beersheba, at the same time as Ion Idriess. He began writing while in the outback, and created the first Aboriginal detective, Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte – or Bony – based on the Aboriginal tracker Leon Wood. The first Bony appeared in The Barrakee Mystery in 1929, and he became an international celebrity in 1932 when his book The Sands of Windee was the model for the murderer Snowy Rowles (see Upfield's Murchison Murders) 29 Bonys were published, also in France and Germany. 26 episodes were made for TV in the early 1970s, and will soon appear again on your screen. “In the mystique of the bush, Upfield saw elements of epic power in Australian life. In contrast, his rather dry style and meticulous plotting seem distinctly smaller in scale. But that is part of Upfield's impact, creating a worm's eye view of awesome natural grandeur, a sense of human inadequacy in a dominating continent.”
* Classic account of the serial-murders in outback Western Australia, with police evidence that responded to Bony's methods of detection. * Colour revival of strong selling sidelight to Upfield's Bony books, especially The Sands of Windee.
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