Cirrus@Austlit

'If you have read any of the Bony novels by Arthur Upfield, then you may already have met some of the characters in this book. The Albury College on the Murray River, a Protestant School for Boys, educates sons from the outback of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia. The Head is Hugh Trench from Windee Station, ably assisted by his wife, Marion. The Deputy Head is the Rev. James from Merino near the Walls of China, as ever supported by his wife, Lucy. In the heat of late summer in 1955, Ralph Dugdale arrives at the private boarding school to teach English and atone for the murder of King Henry at Barrakee Station in 1927. At the school are a new Music teacher, Cora Benson from the Grampian Mountains; the Drama teacher, Henrietta Dalton from Broken Hill; and the Master of Upfield House, Mr Jelly from Western Australia. Indeed most of the staff have mysterious backgrounds. By the end of the school year the past will have caught up with several of them '(Publisher blurb 2010 edition).