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With two camels and a dog, Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte sets off across southern Australia's Nullarbor Plain in search of a missing woman. He finds much more than he bargained for. Set in some of the most mysterious and unforgiving territory in the world - the Australian desert - Man of Two Tribes is vintage Upfield.

By a lonely roadside in the south-west corner of Western Australia, old-time Karl Mueller is roused from his drink-sodden sleep by approaching footsteps and the sound of whistling. What he sees on waking (or thinks he sees) is enough to make him stiffen with fear, and more than enough to worry the police into calling for Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.

The disturber of Mueller's rest is Marvin Rhudder – once an outstanding theological student, now a convicted rapist and basher, a bloody savage whose recapture will put all of Bony's sleuthing and tracking skills to the test.

"Bony – a unique figure among top-flight detectives." – BBC

Why was King Henry, an aboriginal from Western Australia, killed in New South Wales? What was the feud that led to murder after nineteen long years had passed? Who was the woman who saw the murder and kept silent?

This first story of Inspector Bonaparte takes him to the Darling River bush country where he encounters those problems he understands so well – mixed blood and divided loyalties.

Rampageous fisticuffs, rough scenery and rougher, dust-covered sheepmen and wanderers, dignified aboriginals, and so much interest and local colour. – Books and Bookmen

When Inspector Bonaparte is called to the drought-stricken outback sheep station he finds that two men have been savagely beaten to death. Clues are scarce in this sun-baked, sand-blown country, but Bony's understanding of the bush and the people who live there – both black and white – leads him inexorably towards the killer…

When Upfield gets down to the point of interracial sexual relations, he in effect is writing on one of the topics closest to his heart. Here his picture is unusually poignant. Caught in the iron grip of separation from his kind, of loneliness, of sexual attraction, Eric Downer is a victim of life… – from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.

Three times a killer has struck in Daybreak, a one-pub town in Western Australia. Why should so many people suspect the strange 'bad boy' Tony Carr? Why were the local Aboriginal tribe far away from town at the time of the murders? Inspector Bonaparte finds this small community very tight, till the arrival of a job-seeking bloke by the name of Nat Bonnar…

Though lacking in some of the tightness that characterises Upfield's strongest books, this thriller is nevertheless a powerful success. The geography and geology are stark and proper setting, the people are alive and flexing with pain and apprehension… And here, as he so often does, he creates a major heroic character in Melody Sam who is unparalleled and unchallenged. – from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.

Bony – a unique figure among top-flight detectives. – BBC

It is in a harsh and eerie landscape – the crater formed by the meteor they called "The Stranger"
– that another stranger is found… dead. In an area where the presence of every outsider is announced by the bush telegraph, how had this man passed unreported? Who was he? How had he died? No tracks around the crater and no stranger in town. It soon becomes obvious to Bony that both the locals and the Aboriginals are guarding a secret – untill the will of the Tribe breaks their silence…

This is undoubtedly Upfield's strongest book, for a number of reasons: 1) Bony is at his best in his detective work; 2) Upfield is at his best in studying the social and cultural situations of the white and the Aboriginals; 3) though the physical setting is less intense than in some other works, it is strong here; 4) Upfield's symbolism – especially in the use of the metaphor of clothes vs nakedness – is extraordinarily complex. There is no doubt that this particular book is a masterpiece in every way.
– from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.

A cat… a ping-pong ball… a drunken gardener… With these slight clues to go on Detective-Inspector Bonaparte investigates the mysterious death of famous author, Mervyn Blake, who dies an agonising death late one night in his writing room.
But how did he die? No one knows. No one that is until Bony's acute observation of human nature uncovers the murderer – and the method used to kill Blake. One of the few Bonaparte mysteries not set in the outback, reveals Upfield at his best and most ingenious.

Napoleon Bonaparte – my best detective.
– Daily Express

When Bonaparte sets out to investigate two bizarre murders near the dusty little outback town of Carie, all the odds are against him. The crimes were committed a year before, the scent cold, and any clues that may have survived have been confused by a ham-fisted city policeman. As Bony follows the trail he is first threatened and then attacked by the mysterious murderer. It's a case that will tax his ingenuity to the limit… if he lives to see it through.

Excellent set up for a story, good cast of characters, perplexing confusion of suspects, and perceptive unravelling of tangled threads.
– Kirkus Review