Friday, May 26, 2017

Murder Must Wait by Arthur W. Upfield: A Review by Warren Bull



Murder Must Wait by Arthur W. Upfield: A Review by Warren Bull
Image from Touchstone


Originally published in 1953, Murder Must Wait is one of the novels featuring the “half-caste” Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. As usual the author provides a novel where Australia is as much of a character as any person portrayed. 

The Inspector, Bony to his friends, is asked to investigate a series of kidnapping. Four infants in a small town have disappeared. A police task force from the police headquarters has been unable to find any clues. When Bony is asked to investigate, he requests a particular assistant. First Constable Alice McGorr. Although they have never met, the inspector has heard about her and determined that she the perfect fit for the job.

When another abduction apparently includes murder of the mother, the stakes are raised even higher. Bony decides finding the infants, who are presumably alive, must be the focus of the investigation. Uncovering the killer will have to wait. In this book the author portrays the tension between police administrators who have to face political pressure and newspaper coverage and the brilliant investigator who only wants to resolve the mystery. Bony is an outsider because of his ethnicity. McGorr is a woman, which automatically makes her of lesser importance in the male-dominated police agency.


Part of the fun of this book is the interaction between two strong-willed people who have very different backgrounds. As in other novels Bony use both sides of his genetic inheritance to solve the mystery.

6 comments:

  1. I've never read this author, Warren. Is he Australian? I love to see in what strange ways the Aussie's augment English. They have their own slant on the language. I do hope the babies are found safe and sound.

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  2. EB, The author is an Aussie. You're right about their dialect. It is fun to listen to. Spoiler alert: The babies are safe.

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  3. Another good book, I've added to my to be ordered book list. There was a romance series I
    used to read years and years ago when I was reading romances that took place in Australia.
    I loved them as well as another best seller that came out years later, and wasn't a romance that I remember whose name I've forgotten, but enjoyed very much.

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  4. Thanks for pointing us in the direction of a series that sounds fascinating. The "outsider" status of both the main protagonist and his partner sound like they add extra layer to the story.

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  5. Interesting. I never went back and read a lot of the old books when I was much younger and I regret that. The ones I did read were great, but going back to them in this day and time sometimes means adjusting to the old writing style (often more wordy, etc.). It's not always the same as if it would've been if I'd read them back then.

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  6. I love the Bony books! I feel like I'm in Australia when I read them. I think a lot of my knowledge of that country/continent came from these books.

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