Customer Reviews

Bachelors of Broken Hill

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Arthur Upfield's Bony books are a wonderful mixture of Australian life, natural history, and subtle humor. The Bachelors of Broken Hill is typical of his stories, though it is set in a remote mining town as opposed to his usual outback settings. Everyone where I live who reads one book reads them all. We pass copies back and forth as many are out of print and reread them aloud to each other. I keep a map of Australia handy to follow each story and have visited some of the places mentioned in his books. He brings alive a sense of intellectual curiousity as you follow Bony's clues to put enough evidence together for an iron clad verdict.

This is a classic Upfield mystery, although Upfield's not at his best here. Bonarparte is sent to a bustling mining town, but doesn't do much of his usual bushman's work. Upfield portrays the life in this town well, but the murderer's motive is pretty weak this time.

THE BACHELORS OF BROKEN HILL is set in a remote mining town in Australia. Upfield portrays the life in this town extremely well.

If you like detective stories that have solid character and backgrounds, that avoid familiar pattern of crime and detection stories then Arthur Upfield is the author for you. This is a wonderful mixture of Australian subtle humour and the ways of the australian life.

The pace is steady but not quick. This story might be just right for you.

The narrator Peter Hosking is excellent