BONY: CAKE IN THE HAT BOX: An Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte Mystery

Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte #19

by Arthur W. Upfield

Sinister stones... On a lonely dirt road in Western Australia a police jeep is found. In it is Constable Stenhouse - shot dead. His Aboriginal tracker has disappeared. Enter Inspector Bonaparte, who soon realizes that he is not alone in his search for the criminal. The local Aboriginal tribe is seeking vengeance too...

Genres: Mystery, Australia, Crime, Fiction, Detective, Historical, Mystery Thriller

Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Aka Arthur Upfield

Arthur William Upfield (1 September 1890 – 13 February 1964) was an Australian writer, best known for his works of detective fiction featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte ('Bony') of the Queensland Police Force, a half-caste Aborigine.

Born in England, Upfield moved to Australia in 1910 and fought with the Australian military during the First World War. Following his war service, he travelled extensively throughout Australia, obtaining a knowledge of Australian Aboriginal culture that would later be used extensively in his written works. In addition to his detective fiction, Upfield was also a member of the Australian Geological Society and was involved in numerous scientific expeditions. Upfield's works remained popular after his death, and in the 1970s were the basis for an Australian television series entitled "Boney".

Reviews

[Daren]

Upfield's #19 Inspector Bonaparte mystery.
This time in the Western Australian outback, where Bony happens to be passing through as he learns the body of a police constable has been found in his vehicle on a remote road. His Aboriginal tracker is also missing, with his swag and the constable's rifle - and it appears he is the culprit. But of course, that would be far too straight forward, and so Bony takes on the case, outranking the local police and in equal parts confounds and amuses them with his approach to solving the case.

As anyone familiar with these books would know, the story rolls out gently. At first there are things that can't be explained, little progress seems to be made. Some of the outback characters are strange...

But the police are not the only ones looking for a killer. It become apparent that the Aboriginal tracker was not the killer, but also a victim, and his tribe are seeking vengeance. Do the police or the Aboriginals get to the killer first?

Anyone who has spent time in the Australian outback would more than likely have come across those considered strange. Usually they are not, they are just not used to socialising or interacting with people - strangers at least. Social skills require practice, and they don't get a lot of people to practice with! But I digress.

Bony soon narrows down a few possible suspects but has to untangle the web before he can solve the riddle, but can he do so before the Aboriginals?

I like these books, perhaps a little more than they deserve.

An entertaining 4 stars.

[Brenda]

As Sam, the trucker, drove through the vast Australian outback, from Perth north to Agar, he came across a police jeep. The driver, Constable Stenhouse, was dead and the tracker he'd had with him was gone. Driving onto Agar, where he was to unload, he reported the death to the local authorities. It wasn't long before Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte was on the scene, preparing to find the killer of the local cop. But worse was to come, in that the wild Aboriginals were also involved. They wanted to find Stenhouse's tracker; if he was dead, they wanted to find his killer. Bony had a lot to search for, a lot to discover. But it didn't take him long to whittle the suspects down...

Cake in the Hat Box is #19 in the Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series by Aussie author Arthur W. Upfield and I enjoyed it very much. Normally Bony is on the east coast of Australia, but this time, Western Australia. The vast, desolate and dry outback of WA was depicted well - it'd be easy to get lost there (as it is now). I'm really liking this series, with the enigmatic Bony leading the way! Recommended.

[Marianne]

Cake in a Hat Box (also titled Sinister Stones) is the 19th in Arthur Upfield’s Bony series. The story starts with the discovery by a long-distance truck driver of the body of Constable Stenhouse in his jeep on the road to Agar’s Lagoon. Stenhouse, a competent policeman but not a well-liked man, has been shot, and his native tracker is missing.

At first, it looks like, the tracker, Jackie Musgrove, has shot his Constable and cleared out with his swag and rifle. But the local blacks are making smoke signals and gathering purposefully. Bony happens to be in the town of Agar’s Lagoon due to engine trouble in his flight home from Broome, and as the case gets more interesting, he relishes being asked to help with the investigation.

This Bony book is filled with a collection of outback characters, some stoic, some downright bizarre. Despite Bony’s occasional laconic attitude, Upfield gives us fast-paced novel with an original plot, a few twists, especially the motive and the murderer. Upfield’s extensive knowledge of the outback and the aboriginal shines through all his Bony novels. Is there really a cake in a hat box? Does Bony actually get his murderer this time? No spoilers here! Another enjoyable Bony instalment.

[John]

Having not read any Bony stories for a few years, I had forgotten how good they are and this one is very good indeed. Previously read under the title of "Cake in the Hat Box"

Upfield's descriptions of the outback are fabulous and according to many, very accurate. Not terribly politically correct by today's standards, I imagine that they might make uncomfortable reading for today's non-indiginious Australians.

Bony is a very engaging character and if you like pure detection with really entertaining description, complex plot and pure readability then Arthur Upfield is your man. Superb!!!

[Veronique]

My first Arthur Upfield novel. Rather embarassingly, the person who pointed me in his direction was a French friend, in Paris, 4 or so years ago. This rather showed me up as I had been living in Australia for over 10 years but had never come across him... so finally I have read a Bony novel and it was really a very enjoyable experience. The outback (in this instance the North West of the country, around the Kimberleys) is really well captured, good story which moved along fast and a gallery of excellent characters, who could only be Australian. Judging from this book, Upfield was very good at encapsulating 'Australian-ness' and has to be lauded for his extensive depiction and respect of Aborigenal lives and customs in a time when it was probably not that common. I'll defnitely read more of his books.

[Karen GoatKeeper]

I thought my gravel road was bad. It's a major highway compared to the tracks described up, over and through the stone ridges in this part of Australia where this Napoleon Bonaparte mystery is set.
The town is so isolated, trash can't be gotten out so a ring of empty beer bottles surrounds the town growing bigger by the day. The people rarely see each other except in town occasionally but keep in touch by wireless.
Then the town sheriff is found dead in his jeep. His tracker is missing. Unfortunately for those who would have the tracker blamed, Napoleon Bonaparte has been stranded in Agar's Lagoon.
This entire series is easy reading, cozy murder mysteries. One of the great appeals for me is the introduction to the various parts of Australia. This book does not disappoint.

[Karen Smith]

Once again, a really good read.

[Catsalive]

Bony is passing through the rugged area of the Kimberleys when the local policeman at Agar's Lagoon, Constable Martin Stenhouse, is found dead & his black tracker, Jacky Musgrave, missing. At first it seems quite a straightforward murder, but the crime scene is not quite right, & so DI Napoleon Bonaparte is co-opted to run the investigation with Senior Constable Irwin. To make matters more complicated, Jacky Musgrave's tribe are heading to the area with vengeance in mind.

Bony gently questions local families & spends a lot of time tracking through the fantastic country, searching for evidence & getting to know the land. When the people around him think they have him fooled, he smiles to himself & carries on; & when Irwin feels an idiot for not seeing what Bony does, Bony gently puts him at ease. He'd be a great copper to be subordinate to, but I can imagine he'd be a little frustrating to his superiors as he does keep his cards very close to his chest, & he's not one for authority.

The landscape looms over all as, once again, Upfield leads us through the beauty & harshness of the Australian outback.

[Megan]

I grabbed this off the shelf at the library because the bizarre title caught my eye. I had no idea it was part of a series, and I thought it read just fine as a stand-alone. The descriptions and language were amazing-- I learned at least 4 new words, and even having never been to Australia, I got the feeling that now I could find my way around if I were suddenly teleported to that particular Middle of Nowhere.

The rampant, commonplace racism and misogyny made this book less of a pleasure-read than it would otherwise be. Even as someone who reads a lot of old books, I wasn't prepared for it. I'd had a rough couple of weeks and was hoping for something escapist, but this frequently made my heart hurt. It's not clear that the author was in favor of all the ugliness that he described, but many of the narrative descriptions of "Civilized" vs. "Uncivilized" people squicked me out. At the very least, it felt like a chillingly accurate portrayal of oppression.

[Glen U]

"Sinister Stones" is #19 in Arthur Upfield's "Bony" series and, for me, one of his best. Upfield's half caste detective returns to the Outback to snag his culprits and it is this return to the Australian wilderness that makes this book so enjoyable. I love the beautiful descriptions of the land that Upfield brings to his stories and I enjoy the back country ways of detection and justice that the Aboriginal people employ in bringing the offenders to their punishment. This story is a return of one of my favorite fictional characters back to an Australia of hard people and harsh conditions, back from the civilized cities which were the settings of some of the previous books. The plot was well paced and had the normal twists and turns of all detective novels and made for a very good read.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)]

1.5 stars
Upfield's work is uneven, I know that, but this book is very bad. The narration is confusing and there's too much static description of the beauties of Australia (or whatever). Boney evinces racist attitudes and superiority toward the aborigines, speaking and thinking of "wild blacks" and "station blacks" in a way that reminds the reader on every page that the author is in fact a white Englishman. I guess that's the price of not being subjected to his "white side" quarrelling with his "black side". In previous books his bushcraft is held to be second to none, but in this he comes second to several. The action all takes place in the final quarter of the book, while the rest consists of him driving around hither and yon with Irwin.
Boring.

[Sue Law]

Another top Bony novel. This one was published slightly out of order. It was apparently started shortly after "The Widows of Broome" (Bony is on his way home after clearing up that mystery) but not published until after several more of the Bony novels were in print.
On his way home from Broome Bony is stranded in a remote Kimberley town by a broken down aircraft. In the hotel he meets the Breen brothers, one of whom is clearly not well but the towns doctor is dead drunk and unavailable. The next day the body of the Town policeman is found in his jeep north of the town when he was supposed to be south, and their are no tracks of the jeep on the road...

[John]

A copper is killed in the outback of Western Australia. Was it his tracker, or someone else who did the deed? Traditional and white methods are employed by the locals and Bony to track down the murderer. Another great story, interesting characters and plot twists keep the reader guessing.

[Derelict Space Sheep]

Though the murder investigation is somewhat nebulous, the story remains notable for the extreme remoteness of its Western Australian setting, and for its historical depiction of cattle station life—and particularly the relationships between Aboriginal and white folk—in the mid-20th Century.

[Peter Reeves]

great australian outback descriptions

[Kay Hart]

AKA Cake in the Hatbox

[Gu Kun]

3.5

[Lila]

Bony gets stuck in an outpost when the body of a disliked police officer is found. and the native tracker is missing. Bony, however, is not convinced by the evidence.

[Annette]

A good detectivestory with impressive descriptions of the Australian outback, marred by the racist and misogynistic attitudes of the time.

[Brandy]

This is a good one. Interesting story. Great descriptions of the life in the Outback. I am trying to read these in order. Read most of these 40 years ago randomly. They were not published in order.

[Vintagebooklvr]

2 1/2 stars.

[H. Mark]

OK, but not the best of the
Bonmy books. Currently working my way through all 29.....

[Ann]

A dead Constable and a missing Aboriginal tracker lead Bony to the cake in the hat box. Another delightful read!

[Aricia Gavriel]

Just finished a re-read of this one, for the first time in -- oh, a long time! I'd actually forgotten how much I liked the character of "Bony," or "Boney," if you're a fan of the 1973/74 TV show (as I was: it was rerun in something like 1984). During the 1970s, we managed to collect 19 of these slim mysteries, and I confess, I haven't read them in decades. Nice to know memory wasn't playing tricks on me, and this is a very good story indeed. I enjoyed it so much, I've just picked up another, Bony Buys a Woman.

These novels are set in "the Australia that was," and it's a whole 'nother world. People today tend to get upset about Upfield's attitudes to women and Aborigines, refusing to admit that these WERE the attitudes of the time (perhaps even the place). These book are not historicals, forced into political correctness by modern editors. They're time capsules. If you're going to read about Australia in 1950, in a book written back in the day, you have to accept it for what it was. No, it's not politically correct; yes, there was room for improvement -- in fact, there still is. Aus in 2018 is no garden of paradise for minority, marginalized groups ... then again, what country is? In fact, part of the value of Upfield's work is that it actually is a time capsule.

It's become difficult (or even impossible) to find the Bony mysteries in Australia these days, because of the touchiness of modern readers, who can't accept that in our grandparents' day things were so different -- or, if they can accept this truth, they're uncomfortable with the realities, and prefer to ignore or forget them. Maybe this is a good thing? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

One problem that is insurmountable: the question of "cultural misappropriation," which has these stories literally binned at this time, because Bony is half Aborigine, and works with Aborigines, while a white man wrote the stories. What's sad is that, in the 1930s or 40s, Arthur Upfield was just about the only supportive voice these people had. He spoke up for them when few other people did ... he created a wonderful character and depicted the country, the culture and the era with great accuracy and no little sensitivity. Given this, it seems sad indeed that these writings should be all but forgotten in their own land.

[Joy]

Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, half aborigine and half educated intellect, is a fascinating character. Arthur Upfield learned his craft and his characters while drifting from job to job over the continent of Australia over many years. I can't recommend this series enough. In this book, an unpleasant outback policeman is found dead in his jeep, and his aborigine tracker is missing. Bony becomes involved with a mysterious cattle family as he attempts to stop a native tribe bent on revenge. Kimberley Breen, cattle-driving beauty, is an especially compelling character.

[Lucy]

"Down through the ages man has murdered man, and human society from cave dwellers to city inhabitants has banded together in execration of the crime. Modern society fights a killer with scientific aids in the hands of experts, and primitive men still depend on natural phenomena and methods of detection which appear ridiculously chancy. Primitive men must often err, resulting in the innocent being executed; but, strangely enough, the complex machinery of civilized justice, assisted by science, has also been known to execute a man for a crime he did not commit" (142).

[Joy]

A policeman is found dead in a desolate mountain range, and the scene is obviously faked. His tracker has been set up to be blamed. Bony's dual knowledge of Station families and aborigines is essential to bringing the innocent out with whole skins. So is his sympathetic understanding.

SINISTER STONES was renamed as THE CAKE IN THE HATBOX in one of the reissues.

[Helen Mccarthy]

Another great Australian mystery featuring Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. He is able solve the murder of a young policeman several months prior to Bony's arrival on the scene. He is able to connect evidence not previously understood to relate to the murder, and thus solve the mystery. These mysteries are always a fun read.

[James Saunders]

Cake in the Hat Box

A fun book. These books are fun to read and relax me. I have always enjoyed these books. I am never too sure if what he says about the Australian first inhabitants is accurate. tHey are fun to read.

[Dana Hansen]

After finishing one of his first books— Murder Down Under, I picked up The Cake in the Hat Box. I was surprised by how quickly it read and how much I liked the “outback” tale! Fun read, good mystery and interesting details!