Gender Male Spouse(s) Marie Nationality Australian Created by Arthur Upfield | Title Detective Inspector Children 3 First appearance The Barrakee Mystery | |
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Occupation Police Officer, Tracker Portrayed by James Laurenson, Cameron Daddo | ||
Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) is a fictional character created by Arthur Upfield. A half-caste Aboriginal detective, Bony appeared in dozens of Upfield's novels from the late 1920s until the author's death in 1964.
Contents
Early life
Bony's mother was Aboriginal and his father was white, at a time when an interracial relationship between an Aboriginal and a white individual was forbidden. Bony was found in his dead mother's arms, where he was taken in by a Catholic Mission and given the name of Napoleon Bonaparte.
He has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brisbane University.
Career
He is a member of the Queensland police force, although the novels are set throughout Australia.
Bony often works undercover, usually as a station hand or labourer, with only a few senior police aware of his true identity. He frequently uses the alias Nat Bonnar, but other names such as Robert Burns are used also. He often states that "my friends call me Bony".
He has an unblemished record of solving cases, and he is sometimes lent out by the Queensland Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to other jurisdictions that experience a murder unsolvable by the local authorities. He has an overall apathetic opinion of authority, frequently disregarding direct orders from his superiors. He mentions that he has been sacked several times, but due to his skill, is always reinstated almost immediately.
Bony is a tracker without peer, often seeing what other and lesser trackers have missed.
Personal life
Although his age is not specifically mentioned in the novels, Bony seems to be in his early fifties. He is married to Marie, lives in Banyo in Brisbane, and they have three adult sons; the oldest, Charles, is studying to be a doctor.
The Sands of Windee and The Murchison Murders
While working on the second Bony novel The Sands of Windee Arthur Upfield discussed many plot ideas with his outback companions, including Snowy Rowles who committed three murders using methods similar to those described in Upfield's novel. When Rowles was caught, Upfield was forced to testify at his trial. The ensuing publicity surrounding the murders greatly improved the sales of Upfield's novel, and the ensuing notoriety may have helped (at least initially) with kickstarting Upfield's rise to fame.
Television portrayals
Boney was an Australian television series made in 1972, featuring James Laurenson in the title role. The name was spelt 'Boney' for the series, and some editions of the novels kept this spelling for later editions.
Bony was also a 1990 telemovie and later a 1992 spin-off TV series (using the original 'Bony' spelling). However, the series was criticised for casting Bony as a white man (played by Cameron Daddo), under the tutelage of "Uncle Albert", an elderly Aborigine played by Burnum Burnum.