Order of Inspector Bonaparte Books
Inspector Bonaparte is the protagonist in a series of detective fiction novels by Australian novelist Arthur Upfield. Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (aka “Bony”) is a half-Caucasian, half-Aboringine police detective with the Queensland police force. The novels are not only set in Queensland, but throughout the entire country of Australia. He often works undercover, using a pseudonym.
Arthur Upfield began his Inspector Bonaparte series in 1928 with the novel The Barrakee Mystery. The series lasted 29 novels, concluding in 1966 with The Lake Frome Monster. Below is a list of Arthur Upfield’s Inspector Bonaparte books in order of when they were originally published (which is the same as their chronological order):
Publication Order of Inspector Bonaparte Books
| The Barrakee Mystery/The Lure of the Bush | (1929) |    |
| The Sands of Windee | (1931) | |
| Wings Above the Diamantina / Wings Above the Claypan | (1936) | |
| Mr. Jelly's Business/Murder Down Under | (1937) | |
| Winds of Evil | (1937) | |
| The Bone is Pointed | (1938) | |
| The Mystery of Swordfish Reef | (1939) | |
| Bushranger of the Skies/No Footprints in the Bush | (1940) | |
| Death of a Swagman | (1945) | |
| The Devil's Steps | (1946) | |
| An Author Bites the Dust | (1948) | |
| The Mountains Have a Secret | (1948) | |
| The Bachelors of Broken Hill | (1950) | |
| The Widows of Broome | (1951) | |
| The New Shoe/The Clue of the New Shoe | (1951) | |
| Venom House | (1952) | |
| Murder Must Wait | (1953) | |
| Death of a Lake | (1954) | |
| Sinister Stones/Cake in the Hat Box | (1954) | |
| The Battling Prophet | (1956) | |
| Man of Two Tribes | (1956) | |
| Bony Buys a Woman/The Bushman Who Came Back | (1957) | |
| Bony And The Mouse/Journey to the Hangman | (1959) | |
| Bony and the Black Virgin/The Torn Branch | (1959) | |
| Bony and the Kelly Gang/Valley Of Smugglers | (1960) | |
| Bony And The White Savage | (1961) | |
| The Will of the Tribe | (1962) | |
| Madman's Bend/The Body at Madman's Bend | (1963) | |
| The Lake Frome Monster | (1966) | |
If You Like Inspector Bonaparte Books, You’ll Love…
Inspector Bonaparte Synopses: The Barrakee Mystery by Arthur Upfield is the first book in the Inspector Bonaparte series. What was aborigine King Henry, from Western Australia, killed during a thunderstorm in New South Wales? What was the feud that led to murder after nineteen long years had passed? And who was the woman who saw the murder and kept silent? Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is a half-aborigine detective, who is taken to a sheep station in the Darling River bush country where he encounters those problems he understands so well.
The Sands of Windee is book 2 of the Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series by Arthur W. Upfield. The police never notice the small detail in the background of a police photograph of an abandoned car. A detail that tells Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte plainly that the mysterious disappearance of Luke Marks near Windee Station is anything but accidental. Why had Luke Marks driven specially out to Windee? Had he been murdered or had he, as the local police believed, wandered away from his car and been overwhelmed in a dust-storm? Bony feels the answers lie somewhere in the sands of Windee.
I love Bony. Thank you for reminding me of the several paperbacks of old that I have in the back row of my bookshelves. They deserve to be re-read., along with my Margery Allinghams, etc.