[Pulpmeister]

Upfield became famous in Australia in 1931 when he wrote a book called "The Sands of Windee", an early Bony novel. He was then working as a boundary ride on the vermin fence in outback Western Australia, and he and various campfire mates devised the core of his plot: how to destroy a human bodywithout trace on an outback cattle station using only the sorts of equipment easily found there.

As it turned out, about the time the book was published, one of his campfire mates. "Snowy" Rowles, tried out the method in real life, with three victims before he was caught. Upfield was a witness at Rowles' murder trial.

The book I mentioned earlier, "An Author bites the Dust", dates from 1948 by which time Upfield was just about the only novelist in Australia making a full-time living from his novels. He thought that being an internationall known author, published in Australia, Britain, the USA and even Germany, that he would be welcomes by the literary establishment. Not.

"Death of a Lake" 1954 is set during a fierce outback heatwave (which Upfield experienced) which is rapidly drying up a lake on a cattle station, and in the nearby house are a group of people who believe that a missing man and his motorbike will be exposed when it dries up, proving that one of them is a murderer.

He wrote about 20 or so Bony novels, somewhat variable in plotting and characterisation, but with a vivid grasp of locality and the life in the harsher regions of Australia in the 30s and 40s.

[Self-Promotion deleted - MODERATOR]