A cypher that looked like a child's game of noughts-and-crosses; a strip of hessian bag; the rhythmic clanging sound of the turning windmill suddenly breaking the silence of the night; the minister who seemed out of place as a churchman: these were some of the more puzzling aspects of the case of the murdered swagman noticed by the keen eyes of Robert Burns, alias Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, alias "Bony".

"Our distinctive student of violence arrives incognito at Merino, in western New South Wales, and, as a first move, provokes the local sergeant to lock him up. The method in Bony's madness is that while serving a semi-detention sentence and being made to paint the police station, he wears the best of all disguises... Here again is a first-rate Upfield mystery, made warm by humour, by the background characters and his portrayal of the natural background scene." The Age

"Upfield at his best." Adelaide News