Upfield, Arthur - The Bachelors of Broken Hill (1950)

From the blurb:

Two men are killed by cyanide poisoning before Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte comes to Broken Hill to take up the case, and a third dies soon after he arrives. All die in crowded public places, and all are elderly and single. Witnesses recall a woman being near each man before he died, but their descriptions seem to be of entirely different women. Clues are old and witnesses have been mishandled by an inept investigator before Bony arrives in the prosperous mining town, but with the help of the local constabulary, a professional burglar vacationing in Broken Hill, and an amateur quick-sketch artist, Inspector Bonaparte mounts an investigation to try to identify the murderer before she finds another victim.

This is about as close to a police procedural as the Upfield books ever get. Bony is called in on a cold trail in the remote mining town of Broken Hill after two elderly bachelors are poisoned in public places. A third, similar murder is committed, and the clues point to a woman, but then a policewoman is found dead, killed in quite a different way...

There is less atmosphere than usual in a Bony book and the complications of the plot make it hard to suspend disbelief. Bony's detection is genuine enough but it has little to do with the ultimate identification of the killer. There is fun to be had from his useful acquaintance with the burglar Jimmy Nimmo and the foiling of the Sydney 'hard man' Inspector Stillman, but fans who read Bony for his evocative descriptions of bush life will not find them here.

Trivia: Bony quotes J.I.M Stewart's (Michael Innes') book Character and Motive in Shakespeare in Chapter 12 The evil which may rise up in a man's imagination may sweep him on to crime, particularly if, like Macbeth, he is imaginative without the release of being creative.

Jon.