Part of Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, book 21
First published 1986
Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte arrives in the isolated Australian town of Chifley with a baffling case. A woman has vanished without a trace from a passenger train while it crossed the vast Nullarbor Plain. The empty desert stretches for hundreds of miles in every direction, offering no obvious escape route or hiding place. Bonaparte must piece together what happened during that journey across one of the world's most barren landscapes. The remote setting provides few witnesses and fewer clues. Bonaparte's mixed Aboriginal and European heritage gives him unique insights into reading the land and understanding human nature. He faces the challenge of solving a disappearance that seems impossible in a place where survival itself demands every ounce of skill and determination. The case tests his detective abilities against the harsh realities of the Australian outback.
Genres: adventure, mystery, crime, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, impossible-crime
Setting: Australia, Chifley, Nullarbor Plain
Period: 20th-century
215 pages · Paperback · Collier Books