[1] At Wideview Chalet, a guest house in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges, the body of Grumman is found in the gutter outside the building.

Detective-Inspector Bonaparte has been seconded to the Army for special intelligence work and had been watching Grumman, who is, in reality, a member of the German General Staff.

When the local constable is shot dead by a visitor to Grumman, Bony is asked to help the civil police solve the murders.

Set in a fictional mountain resort called Mount Chalmers, similar to the Dandenong Ranges on the eastern edge of Melbourne, Victoria (most probably in the vicinity of Mt Dandenong, but with some similarities to One Tree Hill in Ferny Creek), and also in Melbourne City and its suburbs South Yarra and Coburg.

[4] This novel was adapted for television as Boney and the Devil's Steps (1973), from a screenplay by Joy Cavill, and directed by Ron Way : Fauna Productions.