Now available for the first time, here is Upfield's own story of tramping Australia and developing his great crime novels featuring Bony, the first Aboriginal detective, alongside real desert characters like One-Spur Dick, Mr Pluto, Dead March Harry and the evil Snowy Rowles. Illustrated with photographs from Upfield's archive. The tangled Edwardian syntax is of its time. But the attitudes expressed, of curiosity, respect, even reference for indigenous knowledge is so thrillingly modern that most of us are yet to catch up with them. As is so often the case, it is the migrant that emerges as the true patriot – and the one to see clearly those things locals can or will not.Geordie Williamson, The Australian
