Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Mystery
2 primary works • 7 total works
Book 4
Book 16
Murder down under. The car lies wrecked and abandoned near the world's longest fence, the "rabbit-proof fence" in the wheat belt of Western Australia. There is no sign of its owner. Has George Loftus simply decamped, for reasons of his own? Or was it murder? Bonaparte suspects the worst and is determined to find the body - and the murderer.
The Answerth family's mansion seems to deserve its nickname of Venom House - perhaps because of its forbidding setting, an island in the centre of a man-made lake, its treacherous waters studded by the skeletons of long-dead trees. Perhaps it's because of the unquiet ghosts of the Aboriginals slaughtered by the Answerth ancestors. Whatever the reason, most people are content to give Venom House and its occupants a wide berth...until a couple of corpses turn up in the lake. Inspector Bonaparte has a sudden urge to get to knows the Answerths and their charming home much better...
In an isolate hut not far from the sleepy country town of Merino, stockman George Kendall is found dead - and it looks very much like murder. Six weeks later Bony arrives incognita at Merino and provokes the local police to lock him up. There is method in Bony's madness - in semi-detention he is made to paint the police station and keeps a perfect disguise while searching for single-minded killer...
When Bonaparte sets out to investigate two bizarre murders near the dusty little outback town of Carie, all the odds are against him. The crimes were committed a year before, the scent cold, and any clues that may have survived have been confused by a ham-fisted city policeman. As Bony follows the trail he is threatened, then attacked by the mysterious murderer...
On a calm October day in an Australian seaside town, three met set out to sea for a day's fishing...and do not return. Despite intensive searches, no trace or the men or their boat is founds, until weeks later, a passing trawler hauls in a gruesome catch - the head of one of the missing fishermen. It is clear that its owner was murdered with a pistol shot, but by whom, and why, is for Bony to find out.
A body has been found in a meteor crater in the middle of the Australian desert, with no hint of how it got there. No tracks around the crater and no stranger in town. It soon becomes obvious to Bony that both the locals and the Aboriginals are guarding a secret - until the will of the Tribe breaks their silence...