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9781925706727

Death of a Swagman

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 A cypher that looked like a childs 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 Bonys 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.”
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