We've gone halfway around the world for this week's guest detective from the Classic Mysteries Vault. He is Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, of the police in Queensland, Australia. His friends call him Bony, and he'll quickly invite you to call him by that name as well. He comes from two proud lineages - his Aborigine mother died when he was born; his White father was unknown. But Bony's heritage - his advantages - comes from both races. And he uses those advantages brilliantly in the series of books written by Arthur Upfield. His books seem to be readily available, at least at the moment. Why should you read about him? I thought you'd never ask. Here's a transcript of my audio review of one of the best Bony books, Man of Two Tribes, slightly edited for time references and clarity:
- 0 -
The Nullarbor Plain of South Australia is so vast a wasteland, so flat and unrelenting, that the train line runs across that flat plain for hundreds of miles in a straight line without so much as a curve or an angle to break the monotony. Somewhere along that straight line of track, a woman stepped off the train one night – and vanished. An exhaustive search for miles on each side of the track revealed no trace of her. It wasn’t until several months later than a man got off the train at one of its stops in a tiny town on the plain and began the search anew. The man was Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, known to his friends and colleagues simply as “Bony,” a man who had never failed to complete an investigation. What he found, in the course of his search, was totally unexpected – and revealed such an enormous secret that even the pursuit and capture of a murderer would become almost secondary. The story is found in Man of Two Tribes, a 1956 mystery by the Australian author, Arthur W. Upfield.
I am both delighted and excited to learn that the estate of Arthur Upfield has begun re-releasing and re-publishing all of Upfield’s books about Bony. If you don’t know the character, Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte of the Queensland police comes from a dual racial lineage – his unknown father was White, his mother, who died when he was born, was Aborigine. In Bony, Upfield created a character with the best of both heritages – an appreciation for western traits but an incredible inheritance of Aborigine skills which gave him an enormous advantage in uncovering clues and tracks too slender for most investigators to find. It is that dual heritage which gives this book its title, Man of Two Tribes.
The book begins with the disappearance of Myra Thomas, who apparently either fell from the train or walked off at one of its stops – either way, she had vanished completely. Myra Thomas was accused of having murdered her husband – but she was acquitted at her trial. Now she has disappeared.
Nearly six months later, Bony arrives on the scene. There is some concern among his superiors about espionage, because there are experiments with nuclear weapons going on in the area, and the government security people want to know if Myra Thomas might have been involved in some sort of spying.
So Bony sets out to try to track her across the enormous and dangerous plain. He is puzzled by what appear to be efforts to throw him off the trail – to send him searching in the wrong direction. But when he eventually does find out what has happened…well, that introduces some elements that even Bony had not expected. That includes a murder, of course, and a group of possible suspects – all of whom had murdered someone earlier in their lives. And, ultimately, Bony will have to help them all escape and make their way – on foot – across literally hundreds of miles of the Nullarbor Plain…and the Plain itself may be the greatest threat to their survival and their sanity.
Man of Two Tribes is one of my favorite Bony stories. It allows the character to show off many of his unique skills. It turns the vast wasteland of the Plain into a character in its own right – I don’t mean that literally, but I mean that the setting is such an integral part of the story that you will recognize the Plain itself as a dangerous enemy to be feared.
I am delighted that E-T-T imprint – which consists of Arthur Upfield’s heirs and controls his literary rights – has decided at last to re-release all of the Bony novels as e-books in a variety of formats. They have been unavailable for far too long. Some readers with 21st century attitudes profess to be shocked by Upfield’s 20th century literary treatment of a character who is half-Aborigine, but Bony is an outstanding hero to almost all whom he meets and a role model indeed. I recommend all the books highly – and Man of Two Tribes is among the best.
- 0 -
You can listen to the complete original audio review from the Classic Mysteries podcast by clicking here:
Next: Night Walk, by Elizabeth Daly.