Books published by ETT Imprint

Here is Arthur Upfield's first published novel from 1929: Austilene Thorpe is accused of murder but then disappears from gaol. Her fiance, Martin Sherwood, goes blind from shock. His famous adventuring brother Monty, learns that Austilene is in a refuge for murderers in the far north-west corner of New South Wales near Tibooburra, and together the Sherwoods set out to find her and bring her back to Melbourne.The idea of using the Australian outback as the locale for the novel of reclusive criminals forecasts Upfield's later interest. The landscape and meterology are well developed. The intensity of the Australian outback, to be much more powerfully developed later (in the Bony novels), is nearly overwhelming here.- Ray Browne, The Spirit of Australia

A cypher that looked like a child's game of noughts-and-crosses; a strip of hessian bag; the rhythmic clanging sound of the turning windmill suddenly breaking the silence of the night; the minister who seemed out of place as a churchman: these were some of the more puzzling aspects of the case of the murdered swagman noticed by the keen eyes of Robert Burns, alias Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, alias Bony. Our distinctive student of violence arrives incognito at Merino, in western New South Wales, and, as a first move, provokes the local sergeant to lock him up. The method in Bony's madness is that while serving a semi-detention sentence and being made to paint the police station, he wears the best of all disguises... Here again is a first-rate Upfield mystery, made warm by humour, by the background characters and his portrayal of the natural background scene. - The Age Upfield at his best. - Adelaide News

By a lonely roadside in the south-west corner of Western Australia, old-time Karl Mueller is roused from his drink-sodden sleep by approaching footsteps and the sound of whistling. What he sees on waking (or thinks he sees) is enough to make him stiffen with fear, and more than enough to worry the police into calling for Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. The disturber of Mueller's rest is Marvin Rhudder - once an outstanding theological student, now a convicted rapist and basher, a bloody savage whose recapture will put all of Bony's sleuthing and tracking skills to the test. Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives. - BBC

An extraordinary case for Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte opens when a police car is bombed from the air on a lonely outback road by a mysterious pilot who plans to conquer a nation. The trail through the land of burning waters tests Bony's endurance to the limit and takes the detective as close to death as he has ever been. Welcome to Central Australia!

When two elderly bachelors were poisoned with cyanide, a strange woman was on the scene each time - but now she has disappeared, leaving no trace. Tracking her down in a town of twenty-eight thousand people is a job to tax even Detective Inspector Bonaparte's powers. He will need the unorthodox assistance of burglar Jimmy the Screwsman and a lightning-sketch artist, as well as all the deductive and tracking skills at his command, as he trails a killer no-one has seen...

In October 1878, Victorian Police were instructed to find the Kelly Gang, using the first ever photo I.D.; but the Kellys found them first...'When Kennedy and Scanlon were gone the other two set about camp work. McIntyre, who had the cooking for the day in hand, had disembarrassed himself of his weapons, so when suddenly confronted by the Kelly Gang, and ordered to throw up his hands, he had no resource but obey. Lonergan, who was armed, instead of doing so, started running with apparently the idea of getting some vantage ground from which to shoot. He had only covered four or five yards when he was shot down, and expired a few minutes afterwards. That he meant to show fight was evident by the attempt to get out his revolver when running. According to the evidence given at the trial, the gang manifested some regret at having to shoot down so plucky a fellow. This, however, did not apparently alter their intentions in regard to the rest of the party...'One of the rarest of all Kellyana, The Origin, Career and Destruction of the Kelly Gang has been out of print in any form for over 100 years. Fully illustrated with contemporary engravings and photographs.

When Bonaparte sets out to investigate two bizarre murders near the dusty little outback town of Carie, all the odds are against him. The crimes were committed a year before, the scent cold, and any clues that may have survived have been confused by a ham-fisted city policeman. As Bony follows the trail he is threatened, then attacked by the mysterious murderer...

Murder down under. The car lies wrecked and abandoned near the world's longest fence, the rabbit-proof fence in the wheat belt of Western Australia. There is no sign of its owner. Has George Loftus simply decamped, for reasons of his own? Or was it murder? Bonaparte suspects the worst and is determined to find the body - and the murderer.

The discovery of a stolen red monoplane on the dry, flat bottom of Emu Lake meant many things for different folks. For Elizabeth Nettlefold, the chance to nurse its strangely ill meant renewed purpose in life. For Dr Knowles, brilliant physician and town drunk, it meant the revival of a romantic dream. For some it meant a murder plan gone awry, and for Bonaparte, it meant one of the toughest cases of his career. 'Bony - a unique figure among top-flight detectives.' - BBC

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? When Bony noticed something odd in the background of a police photograph, he begins to piece together the secrets of the sands of Windee. Here is the original background to the infamous Snowy Rowles murder trial. 'Napoleon Bonaparte my best detective.' - Daily Mail

A powerful story of Australia's great sheep farms. Gripped By Drought is a powerful story of a man's battle not only with the elements of nature which threatened the ruin of his huge Australian sheep-farm, but also with a loveless and unhappy marriage. For Frank Mayne, master of well-nigh a million-acre sheep station, life assumed its most dreary aspect. No rain for his farm, a wife who involved him in an orgy of spending and entertainment, and with disaster just round the corner, there seemed little prospect of happiness. Yet in the darkest hour of all, after the many unexpected and sometimes thrilling situations, the darkest hour of the drought gave way to rain and Mayne's tribulations became of the past.

Arthur Upfield, creator of the Aboriginal detective 'Bony' followed his classic crime novel The Sands of Windee with this historical romance: The Crown Prince of Rolandia is visiting Australia - and two brilliant Americans, Earle Lawrence and Van Horton - abduct her on the trans-continental train on the Nullabor Plain. They hide her in caves near Eucla on the Great Australian Bight, until the search is called off and a ransom is arranged...

Harry Tremayne, a policeman, goes to an isolated valley in the remote Murchison region of Western Australia to find his brother - who vanished a month earlier while investigating the murder of a police detective. Do the gold smugglers at Breakaway House hold the answers to the mystery? First published as a serial in the Perth Daily News in 1932, the real setting for the book is Mt Magnet, about 150k north of Perth, deep in gold country. 'It is somewhat less intense and less effective than the books in the Bony series, but it is successful as an early effort of Upfield's treatment of the Australian outback.' - Ray Browne, The Spirit of Australia