Death of a Swagman (1945) by Arthur W. Upfield

Arthur W. Upfield's Death of a Swagman (1945) is the 9th novel about one of the most unique and striking characters from the genre's golden era, Detective-Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte of the Queensland Police, but the book could have easily been the first in the series – as it can be read as a character introduction to Bony. I don't remember any other title in the series in which Bony's personality and philosophy is as central to the story as here.

Bony is an half-Aboriginal police detective and expert tracker who became "an investigator of violent crime in Australia's outback." A vast, untrammelled place where "the science of crime detection" differed enormously from its city counterpart.

In the city, the sciences of fingerprinting, blood grouping, photography and a close examination of the crime scene is of "paramount importance," but a crime scene in the bush is not confined to a single room, flat or street – extending instead for beyond its immediate locale. As criminals don't sprout wings, they have to get around on foot, horseback or in a car, which inevitably leave tracks for Bony to read. Bony refers to the soil as pages in the Book of the Bush that are regularly wiped clean by the rain and wind. So, in the bush, it's more important to be able to tell "the difference between the tracks made by a dog and those made by a fox" than finding fingerprints or analyzing drops of blood.

Bony's skill as a tracker is complemented by his personal, almost Buddhist, philosophy on crime and how to apprehend criminals. A philosophy that reveals Bony to be a terrifyingly efficient manhunter with an inhuman amount of patience.

Bony believes "evil is always countered" and, having recognized this universal law years ago, he never proceeds with undue haste. He calmly waits, watches and observe as Providence tosses the clues in his open hands, because Providence is always kind to patient detectives. So he's basically a big black, blue-eyed cat who patiently stakes out a mouse hole, but his method has a serious drawback. While he waits for Providence "to lend a hand" another "poor devil may be murdered." A serious possibility that comes to haunt him in Death of a Swagman.

Death of a Swagman takes place in Merino, a small township of eighty souls, in the south-west corner of the state of New South Wales where the view is dominated by an extraordinary, wind-built barrier of snow-white sand some twelve miles long, three-quarters of a mile wide, and several hundred feet high – referred to locally as the Walls of China. Six weeks before, the body of a stockman, George Kendall, had been found in an isolated hut lying within the sunrise shadow of the Walls of China. Kendall had been beaten to death and the local police had gotten nowhere near an explanation.

So, eventually, the murder comes to the attention of Bony and his specialized skill set and a record "unblemished by failure" afforded him the luxury to pick and choose his cases, because he refuses to stultify his brain with common murders. What excites him are the "unusual circumstances governing" some murders. The unusual circumstance here was gleaned from a crime scene photo of the hut with a game of naughts and crosses scrawled with chalk on the door. Six weeks later, Bony arrives in Merino in the guise of a stockman, Robert Burns.

The first thing he does upon arriving is getting arrested for loitering outside a licensed premise and being insolent to a police officer, but, once safely behind bars, he reveals his identity to Sergeant Richard Marshall – who's the senior officer of Merino Police District. Bony convinces Sergeant Marshall to arraign him before the local magistrate and ensure he gets two weeks detention to paint the police station. So, while he paints the station by day, he gets to spend a little money in the evening at the hotel saloon and people will talk freely to that poor stockman ensnared by the strong arm of the law. However, while Bony patiently observes and listens, the body count begins to climb.

Edward Bennett is an elderly man who lived in a makeshift hut, on the outskirts of the town, where he was found dead by his daughter. Apparently, Old Bennett had died of fright and cut his head as he fell. A short while later, Bony and Sergeant Marshall find the body of a swagman hanging from the crossbeams of the hut where Kendall was murdered, but it's not until someone goes missing that Bony begins to doubt his own philosophy. A person very near and dear to Bony. And he knew if this person were to die, the "edifice of the philosophy responsible for his success in crime detection would fall" possibly "without replacement by any other." So "the mood of self-condemnation" was heavy upon him towards the end. What baffles them the most is the apparent absence of a motive for any of these crimes.

Upfield retraced and thoroughly redressed the plot of Winds of Evil (1937) in Death of a Swagman, which mainly hinges on the psychological motive of the murderer, but that hardly detracts from the story, because the plot is of secondary importance here – taking a backseat to show how Bony struggles with the case and with himself. Normally, this is a grave, inexcusable offense to plot purists, like myself, but Upfield's writing is so evocative and rich that he can get away with it. Upfield was a master storyteller and an artist who can paint vivid, colorful landscapes with words, which is what makes him the best of the so-called regional mystery writers. But he also knew how to stage good, memorable set pieces. Such as Bony's Jail Cell Tea Party with Sergeant Marshall's 8-year-old daughter or the hearse that comes racing back to town from a half-finished funeral with a mighty thunderstorm licking at its heels. Bony also has a nighttime encounter with the masked murderer, on horseback, which is a scene that would not have disgraced the pages of a good western.

When it comes to the plot, Death of a Swagman is not the strongest title in the series, but, even with the plot taking a backseat, Upfield wrote another enthralling and fascinating story about strange crimes and peculiar characters that are as unique to Australia as the kangaroo and koala. A one-of-a-kind detective series that's not appreciated enough these days.