Tucked away in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales is Cork Valley, inhabited by hard-drinking Irishmen. Here an Excise Officer looking for illicit whiskey 'stills' has been murdered, and it's Bony's job to find the killer. Disguised as a horse-thief, the Aboriginal detective hitch-hikes into the valley to meet a lawless lot… Written by Upfield while living in Bowral, Cork Valley is actually Robertson. Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives. - BBC

Tucked away in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales is Cork Valley, inhabited by hard-drinking Irishmen. Here an Excise Officer looking for illicit whiskey 'stills' has been murdered, and it's Bony's job to find the killer. Disguised as a horse-thief, the Aboriginal detective hitch-hikes into the valley to meet a lawless lot...

Arthur Upfield created Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) who features in twenty-nine novels written from the 1920s to the the 1960s, mostly set in the Australian Outback. He was the first Australian professional writer of crime detection novels. Upfield arrived in Australia from England on 4 November 1911, and this collection of twenty-two critical essays by academics and scholars has been published to celebrate the centenary of his arrival. The essays were all written after Upfield’s death in 1964 and provide a wide range of responses to his fiction. The contributors, from Australia, Europe and the United States, include journalist Pamela Ruskin who was Upfield’s agent for fifteen years, anthropologists, literary scholars, pioneers in the academic study of popular culture such as John G. Cawelti and Ray B. Browne, and novelists Tony Hillerman and Mudrooroo whose own works have been inspired by Upfield’s. The collection sheds light on the extent and nature of critical responses to Upfield over time, demonstrates the type of recognition he has received and highlights the way in which different preoccupations and critical trends have dealt with his work. The essays provide the basis for an assessment of Upfield’s place not only in the international annals of crime fiction but also in the literary and cultural history of Australia.

Deep in Australia's outback, a woman has been murdered, her daughter vanished. Ole Fren Yorky, a crazy wanderer, is known to have been in the area, and his footprints have been identified near the body. When he too disappears, even the Aboriginal trackers are baffled. Bony's approach changes everything... It becomes one of Bony's great adventures... He pictures the merits of Aboriginal society. And he uses weather - in this case the threatening rising of the lake - to picture man's heroic stature. The setting, the events, the pace of telling the story, the style of telling it - all combine to make this a tight, effective crime novel. - From The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.

Three times a killer has struck in Daybreak, a one-pub town in Western Australia. Why should so many people suspect the strange 'bad boy' Tony Carr? Why were the local Aboriginal tribe far away from town at the time of the murders? Inspector Bonaparte finds this small community very tight, till the arrival of a job-seeking bloke by the name of Nat Bonnar… Though lacking in some of the tightness that characterises Upfield's strongest books, this thriller is nevertheless a powerful success. The geography and geology are stark and proper setting, the people are alive and flexing with pain and apprehension... And here, as he so often does, he creates a major heroic character in Melody Sam who is unparalleled and unchallenged. - from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne. Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives. - BBC

On a signboard at Cobargo I read the magic word 'Bermagui'. "That's the place Zane Grey wrote about," remarked my son. "That's the place I'm looking for," I decided. And what a place! Oh, what a place. The air like wine and as cool as that in the green ferntree depths of the gully beside my mountain home! The surf everlastingly playing its music on the sand beach before the town, and the great rocky headland to seaward… Arthur Upfield was Australia's first international crime writer when he first stayed at Bermagui around the time of Zane Grey's visit there in 1936. This book holds a previously unknown Bony story set in Bermagui, The Fish That Danced on its Tail, an unpublished story on Big Game Fishing, and stories on Marlin and Swordfish that Upfield wrote only for the Bermagui Anglers Club. Also included are a chapter from his classic Bony novel, The Mystery of Swordfish Reef, and the only other Bony story - A Wisp of Wool and Disk of Silver and many photographs from the Upfield family archives.

When Inspector Bonaparte is called to the drought-stricken outback sheep station he finds that two men have been savagely beaten to death. Clues are scarce in this sun-baked, sand-blown country, but Bony's understanding of the bush and the people who live there - both black and white - leads him inexorably towards the killer… When Upfield gets down to the point of interracial sexual relations, he in effect is writing on one of the topics closest to his heart. Here his picture is unusually poignant. Caught in the iron grip of separation from his kind, of loneliness, of sexual attraction, Eric Downer is a victim of life... - from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.

By a lonely roadside in the south-west corner of Western Australia, old-time Karl Mueller is roused from his drink-sodden sleep by approaching footsteps and the sound of whistling. What he sees on waking (or thinks he sees) is enough to make him stiffen with fear, and more than enough to worry the police into calling for Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. The disturber of Mueller's rest is Marvin Rhudder - once an outstanding theological student, now a convicted rapist and basher, a bloody savage whose recapture will put all of Bony's sleuthing and tracking skills to the test. "Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives." - BBC