Cirrus@Austlit

'On a signboard at Cobargo I read the magic word 'Bermagui'. "That's the place Zane Grey wrote about," remarked my son. "That's the place I'm looking for," I decided. And what a place! Oh, what a place. The air like wine and as cool as that in the green ferntree depths of the gully beside my mountain home! The surf everlastingly playing its music on the sand beach before the town, and the great rocky headland to seaward...

'Arthur Upfield was Australia's first international crime writer when he first stayed at Bermagui around the time of Zane Grey's visit there in 1936. This book holds a previously unknown Bony story set in Bermagui, The Fish That Danced on its Tail, an unpublished story on Big Game Fishing, and stories on Marlin and Swordfish that Upfield wrote only for the Bermagui Anglers Club. Also included are a chapter from his classic Bony novel, The Mystery of Swordfish Reef, and the only other Bony story - A Wisp of Wool and Disk of Silver and many photographs from the Upfield family archives.'  (Publication summary)

'To observe a ridge of sandhills was to wonder what lay beyond them ... Perhaps it was the sense of freedom, both physically and spiritually, the knowledge that should I want to look beyond the sandhills and peer beyond the mirage, there was nothing but my two legs and a water bag to prevent me ...
As thousands did before me, and as men are still doing in these days, I asked for my check instead of orders one bright morning in May, and a week later an eager young man pushed a loaded bicycle out of Wilcannia.

'Arthur Upfield's autobiography was written in 1937 but put aside during the intervening years of the Second World War. Now available for the first time, here is Upfield's own story of tramping Australia and developing his great crime novels featuring Bony, the first Aboriginal detective, alongside real desert characters like One-Spur Dick, Mr Pluto, Dead March Harry and the evil Snowy Rowles . Illustrated with photographs from Upfield's archive.' (Publication summary)