Arthur W. Upfield has 13 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is The Barrakee Mystery.
The Barrakee Mystery
Summary
Why was the redoubtable King Henry, an aborigine 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? This first story of Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the half-aborigine detective, takes him to a sheep station in the Darling River bush country where he encounters those problems he understands so well... mixed blood and divided loyalties. PLEASE NOTE: Part of the appeal of Arthur Upfield's stories lies in their authentic portrayal of many aspects of outback Australian life in the 1930s and through into the 1950s. These books reflect and depict the attitudes and ways of speech of that era particularly with regard to Aborigines and to women. In reproducing this book the publisher does not endorse the attitudes or opinions they express.
©1965 First published 1929 by Hutchinson and Company Ltd. © Bonaparte Holdings Pty Ltd, 1965. (P)2015 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Mr. Jelly's Business
Summary
Mr. Jelly's Business is one of the finest of Arthur Upfield's many distinguished stories about the career of Detective Inspector Napoleon ("Bony") Bonaparte. It takes Bony to the West Australian town of Burracoppin to investigate the disappearance of George Loftus, whose car was found wrecked near the longest fence in the world, the 1,500 mile Rabbit Fence. He meets Loftus's wife, who is anything but grief-stricken at her husband's disappearance; Loftus's hired man, singularly reticent about his own past history; and many of Burracoppin's numerous gossips. Later he encounters the mysterious Mr. Jelly, whose business causes his charming daughters great anxiety. The double question of Loftus' disappearance and Mr. Jelly's business taxes Bony's well-known powers of observation and deduction to the utmost, until the two problems are simultaneously solved. As anyone who knows Arthur Upfield's other work would expect, Mr. Jelly's Business is more than a story of crime and detection: It also offers an admirable picture of life in West Australia's wheat country.
Public Domain (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
A Royal Abduction
Summary
Arthur Upfield, creator of the Aboriginal detective 'Bony', followed his classic crime novel The Sands of Windee with this historical romance. During a state visit to Australia in 1928, Her Royal Highness Princess Natalie, heiress to the throne of Rolandia, is abducted from the transcontinental train at Cook on the Nullarbor Plain by a gang led by two brilliant Americans, Earle Lawrence and Van Horton. They hide her in caves near Eucla on the Great Australian Bight, until the search is called off and a ransom is arranged....
©2015 William Upfield (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing
Wings Above the Diamantina
Summary
The discovery of the stolen red monoplane on the dry, flat bottom of Emu Lake meant many things to many people. For Elizabeth Nettlefold, the chance to nurse its strangely ill passenger meant a new purpose in life. For Dr Knowles, brilliant physician and town drunk, it meant the revival of a romantic dream. For a person or persons unknown, it meant a murder plan gone badly awry. And for Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, it meant one of the toughest cases of his career.
©1936 Bonaparte Holdings Pty Ltd (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Breakaway House
Summary
A stand-alone novel from the author of the classic Australian Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte mystery series. 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 Breakaway House is Mt Magnet, about 580km north of Perth, deep in gold country.
©1987 William Upfield (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing
The Bachelors of Broken Hill
Summary
A Golden Age mystery, from the incomparable Arthur Upfield. Arthur Upfield was the first non-American to be awarded full membership of the Mystery Writers Guild of America. Among the 28,000 inhabitants of Broken Hill, there stalks a killer. Already two elderly bachelors have died horribly from cyanide poisoning. Now, two months later, Detective Inspector Napolean Bonaparte faces a cold trail - no motive, no clues. So Bony waits for what he believes to be inevitable - a third killing.
©1998 Arthur W. Upfield (P)2009 Bolinda Publishing
The Clue of the New Shoe
Summary
The nude body of a man is discovered entombed in the walls of Split Point Lighthouse on the South-East Coast of Australia. Investigating the crime Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the half-aborigine detective, wonders why a coffin is moved at night, who was the girl struggling with Dick Lake on the cliff top, and what caused the Bully Buccaneers to deal in death. Superintendent Bolt said, 'It's the toughest job we've ever had to bash open.' An ordinary policeman could afford to fail, but Bony never....
©1967 Arthur W. Upfield (P)2003 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Winds of Evil
Summary
The incomparable Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is back - and now he must solve one of his most baffling cases. When Bony sets out to investigate two bizarre murders at Wirragatta Station, deep in the Australian Outback, all the odds are against him. The crimes were committed a year before, the scent is now cold, and any surviving clues have been confused by a bumbling policeman. As Bony gets closer to the trail, the mysterious murderer sets out to stop him. Can Bony stop the killer first?
©1937 Bonaparte Holdings Pty Ltd (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Murder Must Wait
Summary
Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in the little town of Mitford, New South Wales, to find that five babies have been abducted and a murder committed. The half-aborigine sleuth calls in policewoman Alice McGorr to help him, and one of the most important clues they find is a cave drawing depicting an aboriginal legend. Bony, as unorthodox and cunning as ever, reenacts the legend in order to solve the mystery.
©1953 Arthur W Upfield (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The House of Cain
Summary
A first-rate thriller about an American millionaire who owns the House of Cain, a haven for murderers wanted by the law.
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-east corner of South Australia, and together the Sherwoods set out to find her and bring her back to Melbourne....
©1929, 2013 William Upfield (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing
The Mountains Have a Secret
Summary
A thrilling mystery and one of the incomparable Inspector Bonaparte's toughest cases. Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte travels to Victoria, where two young women have disappeared while hiking in the Grampians. Not long after the search for the girls is called off, a local detective is found shot dead. Bony visits the hotel the women were last seen at, and meets the hotel's unsavoury proprietor. The resulting encounter propels Bony into an investigation which almost costs him his life. Please Note: Part of the appeal of Arthur Upfield's stories lies in their authentic portrayal of many aspects of outback Australian life in the 1930s and through into the 1950s. These audiobooks reflect and depict the attitudes and ways of speech of that era particularly with regard to Aborigines and to women. In reproducing this audiobook the publisher does not endorse the attitudes or opinions they express.
©2016 WA Upfield (P)2016 Bolinda
Sands of Windee
Summary
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.
©1931 Bonaparte Holdings Pty Ltd (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Battling Prophet
Summary
Ben Wickham, a famous meteorologist whose uncannily accurate forecasts have helped famers and graziers all over Australia, has died after a three-week drinking bout. The doctor certifies that his death was cause by heart failure due to alcoholic poisoning. But Ben's neighbour and drinking partner, John Luton, is convinced his friends didn't die from too much gin. He manages to lure Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte to his riverside cottage near the South Australian coast, on an unofficial visit for a spot of fishing. Bony, thinking at first he's on holiday and paying a casual visit, is intrigued and decides to investigate.
©1956 Bonaparte Holdings Pty Ltd (P)2015 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd