This adventure of Inspector Napoleon (Bony) Bonaparte is set in North Western Australia; it deals with a corpse in a meteor crater and with vital information hidden behind the impassive mask of an aboriginal tribe, where only the half-black Bony has any hope of reaching it. The interplay between whites and blacks, from assimilated to wholly wild, is subtly and sensitively handled, and Bony emerges as one of the rare detective figures with genuine stature as a man. As in most Upfield novels, the geography, the geology and the cultural anthropology of Australia are living elements in the story (Cover, Collier 1984 ed.).