"[2] Takes place at Burracoppin and Merredin east of Perth in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia along the rabbit-proof fence.

He confounds popular tradition by combining many of the virtues instead of all the vices of the races in his divided ancestry.

Added to which he is a most efficient officer of police whose success is due not to fortuitous gifts of coincidence or ridiculously brilliant (and lucky) deduction, but to a calm and practical reasoning along that trail of common sense which has led to more real-life murderers than a library full of those fantastic (if diverting) methods of trailing the villain to which we have become accustomed in popular fiction.

They then conclude: "Mr. Upfield creates his Australian atmosphere mainly by putting colloquialisms into the dialogue allotted to his 'local' characters.

This and the mixed blood and consequent sensitiveness of Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte give the book a faintly individual flavour.