A cat...a ping-pong ball...a drunken gardener...With these slight clues to go on Detective-Inspector Bonaparte investigates the mysterious death of famous author, Mervyn Blake, who dies an agonising death late one night in his writing room. But how did he die? No one knows. No one that is until Bony's acute observation of human nature uncovers the murderer - and the method used to kill Blake. One of the few Bonaparte mysteries not set in the outback, reveals Upfield at his best and most ingenious.

Will of the Tribe

by Arthur Upfield

Published 6 March 1972
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...

Murder Must Wait

by Arthur Upfield

Published March 1971
In the little town of Mitford, New South Wales, four babies have been stolen - all boys, all under three months old, and all apparently neglected by their mothers. The local police have given up and the trail is cold. Then a fifth child vanishes, and the mother is found dead next to the empty cot. Inspector Bonaparte is called in, first to find the missing children, and only then to solve the murder...

Bony Buys a Woman

by Arthur Upfield

Published February 1967
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...

Torn Branch

by Arthur Upfield

Published 4 January 1993