Meet Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte ... Arthur W. Upfield's half-white half-aboriginal detective ... of Australia ...

I bought Arthur W. Upfield’s The Bone is Pointed along with two other books on the same day from three different secondhand booksellers on amazon.  Yeah, very unusual.  Actually, I was looking for books by some other author and The Bone is Pointed turned up along with other books.  My curiosity was pricked by An Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Mystery on the cover.  Hmmm … this needs further investigation, I felt strongly. 

Of course, nothing should come across as uncommon, but every concept eventually gets stereotyped in some way.  I found out that the author, Arthur W. Upfield, was born in England, but lived in Australia all his adult life, and created this ‘half Aboriginal-half white Australian’ (in the language of the day, he would be called ‘half caste Aborigine’) detective inspector called Napoleon Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force.  Napoleon Bonaparte is ‘Bony’ in the novels to those who know him. 

After he was sent to Australia by his father when he was around 20, Upfield joined the Australian military and fought during World War I.  He travelled throughout Australia doing all sorts of jobs after coming back from the war.  His travels in the Australian outback during this period gave him much knowledge of Australian Aboriginal culture that he used in his novels and other works.  Upfield says that during his travels he met a man known as ‘Tracker Leon,’ also a half Aboriginal-half white Australian and an excellent tracker, who was employed by the Queensland Police, and Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is based on this Tracker Leon.   

Upfield wrote 29 novels with Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte as the protagonist until his death in 1964.  The Bone is Pointed is the sixth in the ‘Bony’ series and was written in 1938.  This is Australia of the 1930s moving towards the 1960s that I would be reading in the 'Bony' novels -- the seen and lived contemporary Australia of the mid 20th century.  All his novels, then, were written much before I was born, and it is only now I get to know him.  Aah well … nothing lost.  I can always make up, I thought, going by the fact that I got to buy this novel for only Rs.99.  I started searching for more Napoleon Bonaparte novels, and I found them, but the prices were so high that I realized this ‘Rs.99 novel’ was the one that got away and landed on my lap.  This high price could also be due to scarcity and the ‘niche’ factor.  But, not to worry, I can wait and will keep track of the prices and movements of new copies in old portals. 

I have reached page 64 of The Bone is Pointed and I have since met Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte and he introduced himself thus …

You know … were I not a rebel against red tape and discipline I should be numbered among the ordinary detectives who go here and go there and do this and that as directed.  Team work, they call it.  I am never a part of a team.  I am always the team.  As I told you, I think, once I begin an investigation I stick to it until it is finished.  Authority and time mean little to me, the investigation everything.  That is the foundation of my successes.

This comes towards the end of chapter 3 and I liked this detective and his personal manifesto instantly, and there is no doubt that I would go on and read, if not all, many more of his exploits.  And immediately after this introduction, Bony does a Holmesian deduction cameo and Sargeant Blake the local policeman, Watson like, bewildered, asks Bony, “How did you do it?” …  Bony’s answer tells us about his affinity with the great Australian outback, the bush, being an Aboriginal, his natural self so to say …

“In a city drawing-room, a city office, on a city street, I am like a nervous child,” Bony began his reply, which was no reply to the policeman.  “Here in bush townships I am a grown man.  Out there in the bush I am an emperor.  The bush is me : I am the bush : we are one.”  And then Bony laughed, softly, to add: “There are moments when I feel great pride in being the son of an aboriginal woman, because in many things it is the aboriginal who is the highly developed civilized being and the white man who is the savage.  Perhaps your association with me on this case will make you believe that.”

And by now we also get an aerial view and detailed description of the Australian bush when Bony is taken in a plane from the bush town to the vast farmhouse in the bush across vast stretches of land, woods, water bodies, and ranches, farms, with horses, sheep, and fences.  So, I have met the detective now and know the lie of the land and I just finished reading an engrossing and penetrating session of questioning by Bony.  I know I am in for a good investigative journey into Australia’s outback in The Bone is Pointed.