Library's review
The Australian half-caste detective inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte is back for his second case. He has once again strayed from his home turf in Queensland, again traveling to a remote bit of New South Wales in order to investigate a missing persons case — or at least, a case in which
The mystery here is much more complex and layered than that of the first book in this series, and the entirety is told (in third person) from Bony's point of view, so the reader gets real insight into how this most unusual policeman thinks and processes the evidence and information he gathers. In the end, even though he solves the murder entirely to his satisfaction, he finds himself in a moral quandary about it. The discussion of said quandary ends the book, which does somewhat detract from an absolutely blockbuster climactic section involving Bony on horseback, trying to outrun a bush fire that threatens to overtake him at any moment. Overall, it's an unusual mystery plot and a most unusual detective, but I very much enjoyed both.
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everyone except Bony is convinced is a simple matter of a man unfamiliar with the territory wandering away from his car and get "bushed" — or lost in the wilderness. Bony is convinced the man was murdered, although no body or any physical evidence at all has been found, and he sets out to prove it by once again going undercover at a nearby sheep station, this time the titular Windee.The mystery here is much more complex and layered than that of the first book in this series, and the entirety is told (in third person) from Bony's point of view, so the reader gets real insight into how this most unusual policeman thinks and processes the evidence and information he gathers. In the end, even though he solves the murder entirely to his satisfaction, he finds himself in a moral quandary about it. The discussion of said quandary ends the book, which does somewhat detract from an absolutely blockbuster climactic section involving Bony on horseback, trying to outrun a bush fire that threatens to overtake him at any moment. Overall, it's an unusual mystery plot and a most unusual detective, but I very much enjoyed both.
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The police never notice the small detail in the background of a police photograph of an abandoned car. A detail that tells Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte plainly that the mysterious disappearance of Luke Marks near Windee Station is anything but accidental. 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? Bony feels the answers lie somewhere in the sands of Windee.
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1931