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) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Sands of Windee | (1931) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Wings Above the Diamantina / Wings Above the Claypan | (1936) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Mr. Jelly's Business/Murder Down Under | (1937) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Winds of Evil | (1937) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Bone is Pointed | (1938) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Mystery of Swordfish Reef | (1939) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Bushranger of the Skies / No Footprints in the Bush | (1940) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Death of a Swagman | (1945) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Devil's Steps | (1946) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| An Author Bites the Dust | (1948) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Mountains Have a Secret | (1948) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Bachelors of Broken Hill | (1950) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Widows of Broome | (1951) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The New Shoe/The Clue of the New Shoe | (1951) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Venom House | (1952) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Murder Must Wait | (1953) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Death of a Lake | (1954) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Sinister Stones/Cake in the Hat Box | (1954) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Battling Prophet | (1956) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Man of Two Tribes | (1956) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Bony Buys a Woman / The Bushman Who Came Back | (1957) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Bony and the Mouse / Journey to the Hangman | (1959) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Bony and the Black Virgin / The Torn Branch | (1959) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Bony and the Kelly Gang / Valley of Smugglers | (1960) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Bony and the White Savage | (1961) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Will of the Tribe | (1962) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| Madman's Bend / The Body at Madman's Bend | (1963) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
| The Lake Frome Monster | (1966) | Description / Buy at Amazon.com |
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.