The Battling Prophet is the 20th novel in the Bony series by Arthur Upfield. Having solved a smuggling case for the South Australian Police, Bony decides to mix business with pleasure by taking ten days leave to go fishing at the small coastal town of Cowdry, as the guest of one John Luton. Luton has requested Bony’s presence as he is convinced that his good friend, unorthodox meteorologist and long-range weather forecaster, Benjamin Wickham, was murdered. Whilst the local doctor listed the cause of death as heart failure due alcoholic poisoning, Luton expounds his theory on the effects of different sprits on the DTs (hoojahs), and cites this as proof that his friend was murdered. As the body has been cremated without autopsy, Bony has to look at motive and means. Wickham’s predictions were extremely accurate and he was both admired and detested; this accuracy also made him a target for those who wanted to obtain his methods for their own gains; the beneficiaries of his will are another source of suspects. Upfield touches on a myriad of subjects: the merits of binge drinking and abstinence; the value of accurate long-range weather forecasting for would-be world conquerors; trade unionism; communism; sectarianism. He is scathing of the Security Service and the Commonwealth Investigation Service. The reader will be intrigued when Bony makes the completely uncharacteristic move of following telegraphed orders to return to Brisbane before he has solved his case. Plenty of twists in the plot that will keep the reader guessing, and, of course, Bony constructs and smokes many “alleged cigarettes”. Excellent Upfield mystery.
"I'm careful because underneath Cowdry there's a lot of it, the sort of sectarianism which don't always apply to religion. Out a bit from town there's a settlement of small market-gardeners what is crammed with Italians. There's some in Cowdry who hates them, and some they hate, with reason. So the Scotties run the banks, the Irish run the Gov'ment Departments, the Italians run the market gardens, and the Australians chew tobacco and lean up against veranda posts. If only all these ruddy lunatics would forget their grandfathers, the county would be worth livin' in" (70-1)."In the Iron Curtain countries they use drugs and implements to make a man talk. In the United States they employ bright light and relays of questioners. In Australia, if a criminal won't talk, they give him afternoon tea; in other words, leisurely soften him with kindness. It is a sad fact that these several methods of extracting information, based no doubt on scientific research and study, were ever man-controlled. Huge steam hammers to crack eggs! But interrogation by women!" (188)
Do You like book The Battling Prophet (2007)?
A wonderful series detective novel series, written from the 1920s to the 1960s. Most of the books in this series are set in or near towns or stations in the Australian bush. The books offer a wonderful sense of place and culture of the time, good mysteries to solve, and a half-aboriginal, half-white police detective called Napoleon Bonaparte, a character in the Sherlock Holmes mold. A few of the Napoleon Bonaparte books are set in larger towns or cities, but I think the books set in the bush are the best. Their settings are more evocative and the main character is at his best in the bush.
—Alaina Sloo
