The Torn Branch

This was the first Napolean Bonaparte mystery I have read. Can't wait to read the others! Always fascinating to read about other times and other places. And doubly so when the detective is smart and unique. And has his own methodology. Just like Poirot does. This book tends to dwell overly on an interracial relationship. Hoping others of his novels will be less tedious in this regard. My edition of this book was titled "Bony and the Black Virgin". Seems it is also known as "The Torn Branch"

Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte ("Call me Bony") is one of the all-time-great fictional detectives. The weird and wild topography of Australia is his hunting ground. A well-educated blue-eyed half-caste, Bony boasts of having the inexhaustible patience of an aborigine tracker and the cold reasoning powers of a white man. Justly vain, he never fails to crack a case. Witty and elegant, he obliterates prejudice by the sheer power of his personal charm. The Torn Branch is a sublime love story, darkly entangled with a murder investigation. When Eric Downer and his father return to their sheep farm in the outback from their "annual bender" in Mindee, they find a murdered man, a total stranger, in the machinery shed. The hired hand looking after things has disappeared. The local aborigines broadcast news of the murder by smoke signal. The police and their trackers investigate, but to no avail. Six months later Bony arrives in a silk suit and Panama hat, confident of finding the murderer. And despite the coldness of the trail, Bony is in fact able to spot invisible tracks on the claypan and uncover buried clues in the scrub. But his almost magical skills are destined to have tragic consequences. Upfield's terse descriptions of Australian landscapes are always fascinating. In this case, a three-year drought has ravaged the land, "the sheep staggering about like reddish ghosts in a red hell of dust." The Bony mysteries, written between 1929 and 1962, are a feast of exotic settings, aboriginal lore and colorful slang. They are totally addictive, and I recommend them all. After one or two, you may find yourself calling your food "tucker" - and "boiling the billy" instead of making tea! An alternate title of The Torn Branch is Bony and the Black Virgin.

A friend recommended that if we liked Tony Hillerman, we should try Arthur Upfield. This is the first of the "Bony" mysteries that I've read, and Upfield wove in elements of Australian aboriginal culture in a way similar to the way Hillerman uses southwest Native American culture. I have to admit that I know pretty much nothing about aboriginal culture or Australian settlement and politics, but I am now curious to learn more. Note: this book was written in the 1950s, and I'm not sure how PC some of the language and attitudes would be considered today.