(1) Arthur Upfield was an Englishman who emigrated to Australia, did all the 'right' things (worked as a swagman on a sheep ranch, etc.), and went on to write a great many mysteries about the half-Aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte (named thus after the book he tried to eat when first taken to the foundling hospital). 'Bony' is one of the most interesting detectives in the genre, combining intellectualism and logical thinking (from his white father's roots) with bush savvy and infinite patience (from his Aboriginal mother's roots); this may be considered old-fashioned racial preconception, but if taken on its own merit leads to some very good detective stories often exotic to non-Australians. His normal method -- which his superiors put up with with some exasperation -- is to take on a months-old case going nowhere, go undercover as a swagman or other itinerant laborer, and trace down the solution by getting to know the characters and environment intimately and using his honed bush skills (tracking, 'shamanistic vision', etc.). The writing is rather pedestrian, but that is made up for by the brilliant plots even when they tend to drag on a bit. What maintains detective interest in these stories is not deduction but what Bony discovers, and how he does so. The New Shoe (1951) is atypical in that it is not set in the Outback or some other remote place but at a small holiday resort town not far from Melbourne. It concerns the murder of an unknown man whose body is discovered inside a lighthouse. The local and Melbourne police have gotten nowhere, so they 'borrow' Bony from Queensland to solve the case, which of course he does, while posing as a sheep farmer on an off-season holiday from his wife, and making friends with the small number of locals -- the tourists being gone -- and spending a lot of time wandering about the environs at night and hanging out in the inn/pub where he is lodging. Good characters, especially old Penwarden the coffin-maker. The plot is quite good, with subtle clues, and the feeling one gets is of a nice and pleasant read. Here is a short extract that shows how 'foreign' the setting is to somebody who lives in Brooklyn NY:
(2) South Africa is a rare setting for police procedurals, but the James McClure set is a triumph. This a rather short series (considering it spans 20 years in the writing) about Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and his Bantu assistant Mickey Zondi: Kramer with his Widow Fourie and Zondi with his wife Miriam and his zoot suit. While the setting is exotic enough, especially since it takes place in the days of Apartheid, the characters are a mix of all classes, from low-life and poor blacks (putting up with appalling living conditions) to rich Anglos and bourgeois Boers; the crimes are usually gruesome, the books are well-plotted and clued, and many scenes both dramatic and surprising. McClure writes well, and with wit and nice imagery ("the large eyes seemed too open and vulnerable, like windows without any glass in them"); some of his incidental police are Keystone Kops and go for the third degree, especially with 'kaffirs'. A scene like the following is characteristic, although it is a cliché of detective fiction to have crusty medical examiners.
(3) Totally weird, and also very funny. There are some good plots, too, and some very violent and bloody scenes. The police are under Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer, who is a serious character, and among others include the clowns Auden and Spencer and the Irish-Chinese O'Yee. The books are set in Hong Kong, in a fictional slum called Hong Bay, before the hand-over of the Crown Colony to the Chinese in 1997 (see my old web page Empress of Gibraltar). The author is self-indulgent with peculiar stylistic tricks that are disconcerting until you get used to them: uncompleted sentences and repetitive phrases ("He saw -- He felt time. He felt it. Time... He felt it. He felt it given. He --") -- this becomes irritating, to say the least. Bear with it and press on! The Far Away Man (1984) .....................
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