Books published by ETT Imprint

Deep in Australia's outback, a woman has been murdered, her daughter vanished. Ole Fren Yorky, a crazy wanderer, is known to have been in the area, and his footprints have been identified near the body. When he too disappears, even the Aboriginal trackers are baffled. Bony's approach changes everything...It becomes one of Bony's great adventures... He pictures the merits of Aboriginal society. And he uses weather - in this case the threatening rising of the lake - to picture man's heroic stature. The setting, the events, the pace of telling the story, the style of telling it - all combine to make this a tight, effective crime novel. - From The Spirit of Australia by Ray Brown.

It is in a harsh and eerie landscape - the crater formed by the meteor they called "The Stranger" - that another stranger is found... dead. In an area where the presence of every outsider is announced by the bush telegraph, how had this man passed unreported? Who was he? How had he died? No tracks around the crater and no stranger in town. It soon becomes obvious to Bony that both the locals and the Aboriginals are guarding a secret - untill the will of the Tribe breaks their silence...This is undoubtedly Upfield's strongest book, for a number of reasons: 1) Bony is at his best in his detective work; 2) Upfield is at his best in studying the social and cultural situations of the white and the Aboriginals; 3) though the physical setting is less intense than in some other works, it is strong here; 4) Upfield's symbolism - especially in the use of the metaphor of clothes vs nakedness - is extraordinarily complex. There is no doubt that this particular book is a masterpiece in every way. - from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Brown.

If any man was ever born to be murdered, it was William Lush - a hated drunk who disappeared after beating his wife to death. Plenty of men had the opportunity to murder Lush, some the means, none the motive. Jill Madden, his pretty step-daughter, had all three... When Lush disappears, Inspector Bonaparte must look for a body - and the murderer - before the Darling River rises to flood level…This novel is one of Upfield's major accomplishments... Bony's determined search no matter where guilt falls is fascinating... This book is Upfield at his best. - from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.

In this witty and entertaining memoir, Alister Kershaw describes the pleasures of his prolonged residence in France - a country of villages - from 1948, when even Paris was a series of villages. In post-war Paris, Kershaw lived a penniless but joyous existence, tramping streets he had long imagined from the poets and novelists he had read. 'Village to Village' captures a Paris long gone but vividly remembered. The author conjures Paris prior to the triumph of the technocrats and town planners, and the major redevelopments that changed the provincial cities for all time. It also traces the author's move into the Berry, two hours south of Paris, where he lives in a hamlet of six houses and finds a rural life amongst a small group of traditional winemakers. What will his neighbours make of this intruder - a writer, a poet, a broadcaster - and an Australian into the bargain?

The nude body of a man is discovered entombed in the walls of Split Point Lighthouse on the south-east coast of Australia. Inspector Bonaparte wonders why a coffin is moved at night, who was the girl struggling with Dick Lake on the cliff tops, and what caused the Bully Buccaneers to deal in death. An ordinary policeman could afford to fail, but Bony, never...The story takes place at Split Point, 80 miles between Anglesea and Lorne... The story is enlivened - and made more stark by contrast - by a series of Dickensian characters who are unexcelled in Upfield and perhaps elsewhere as well. Despite the solemnity of the occasion for the visit, Upfield maintains a kind of corpse-like humour which is very amusing... The whole book is first-class Upfield and first-class crime fiction. - from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne

In the little town of Mitford, New South Wales, four babies have been stolen - all boys, all under three months old, and all apparently neglected by their mothers. The local police have given up and the trail is cold. Then a fifth child vanishes, and the mother is found dead next to the empty cot. Inspector Bonaparte is called in, first to find the missing children, and only then to solve the murder...Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives. - BBC

To one who for a good many years has lived among the tropic isles of Torres Strait, and whose constant regret has been that their romantic attractiveness is so little known even to Australians, the Drums of Mer comes with very strong appeal. There are some who may think that Mr Idriess is giving us simply an imaginative picture, but the author has travelled the Strait with the discerning eye and contemplative soul of the artist who is satisfied only with first-hand colour, and who, while blending history and romance with subtle skill, at the same time keeps within the region of fact. The records and documents placed at his disposal by those who have patiently collected them in the interests of history, of ethnological and scientific research, and (if one may be allowed to say so) even of missionary theological science also, provide the rich store upon which he has drawn for the thrilling story he has woven round the people of Mer and the other islands of Torres Strait. We have been waiting for someone to catch the charm and appealing mysteriousness of these islands, and to visualize the days, not so very long past, when the great outrigger canoes, with their companies of feather-bedecked headhunters, traversed the opalescent waters a couple of hundred miles down the Barrier, to return perhaps with cowering white captives or grim human trophies for the ceremonies of the 'Au-gud-Au-Ai,' the 'Feast of the Great God.' And if it seems that the starkness of tragedy throws a cloud here and there over the dramatic episodes which the author has so well narrated, possibly it is a good thing for present-day tourist-travellers (and others too!), to realize that a trip along the Barrier and through the Strait on the way to China was not always so free from danger.(from Foreword by Wm. H. MacFarlane), Mission Priest, Torres Strait; Administrator of the Diocese of Carpentaria. 31 July 1933.)

Broome is a little sun-drenched town on the barren north-west coast of Australia, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else's business, where all the little bungalows might be glass for all the secrets they hide. How then had the murderer of Broome's two most attractive widows got away without leaving a single clue? Detective-Inspector Bonaparte investigates, with his usual calm precision - but the murderer strikes again, and Bony realises he is dealing with a madman - that time is running out..."Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives" - BBC

A cat... a ping-pong ball... a drunken gardener... With these slight clues to go on Detective-Inspector Bonaparte investigates the mysterious death of a famous author, Mervyn Blake, who dies an agonising death late one night in his writing room. But how did he die? No one knows. No one that is until Bony's acute observation of human nature uncovers the murderer - and the method used to kill Blake. One of the few Bonaparte mysteries not set in the outback, reveals upfield at his best and most ingenious."Napoleon Bonaparte, my best detective." - Daily Express

The extraordinary story of a classic Australian Pioneer - told by Australia's 'Boswell of the Bush', Ion L. Idriess. Almost single-handedly John Flynn of the Australian Inland Mission brought to the outback the Flying Doctor Service and the Bush Hospitals. His magnificent vision, formed as he travelled on the back of a camel across the vast space of Australia's outback, took a lifetime of courageous commitment to bring to reality. 'It is impossible to read this book and remain untouched by the greatness of John Flynn's inspiration.' - Morning Post, London Ion L. Idriess celebrated Australia's exuberant history in over 50 books, written in an easy conversational style that has made him lastingly popular. In stories such as 'Flynn of the Inland', 'Back O' Cairns' and 'Lasseter's Last Ride', Idriess brings to life the wild beauty of the outback and the many colourful characters who people it.

The young Wooreddy recognised the omen immediately, accidentally stepping on it while bounding along the beach: something slimy, something eerily cold and not from the earth. Since it had come from the sea, it was an evil omen.Soon after, many people died mysteriously, others disappeared without a trace, and once-friendly families became bitter enemies. The islanders muttered, 'It's the times', but Wooreddy alone knew more: the world was coming to an end.In Mudrooroo's unforgettable novel, considered by many to be his masterpiece, the author evokes with fullest irony the bewilderment and frailty of the last native Tasmanians, as they come face to face with the clumsy but inexorable power of their white destroyers.A novel of real power and stature. - Adelaide AdvertiserIn Dr Wooreddy, Mudrooroo has taken his previous themes of (Aboriginal) heritage and identity and melded them into one perception. This is an amazing book. - Newcastle HeraldPowerfully imaginative, unflinchingly honest, rich in imagery and alive with comic ironies. - Australian Book ReviewOutstanding. - Boston Herald

An intriguing case for Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte begins on a calm October day in an Australian seaside near Bermagui. Three men set out to sea for a day's fishing... and do not return. Despite intensive searches, no trace of the men or their boat is found, until, weeks later, a passing trawler hauls in a gruesome catch - the hear of one of the missing fishermen. It is quite clear that its owner was murdered with a pistol shot. But by whom, and why, is for Bony to find out.A thriller with a new kind of thrill. - Sheffield Morning Telegraph

Jeffrey Anderson was a big man with a foul temper - a sadist and an ugly drunk. When his horse, The Black Emperor, an animal as mean as its owner, came home riderless, no one cared. And no one cared when no trace of the man could be found. But five months later, Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is called in - and he is determined to solve the mystery. With his usual tenacity he takes up the cold trail. What happened to Anderson, to his hat, to his stockwhip, to his horse's neck-rope? Bony must rely on his eyes and his wits to help him find the answers, for the local inhabitants, both black and white, are keeping their own secrets.Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives - BBCBony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives - BBC'Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives.' - BBC