Breakaway House — Arthur W. Upfield

Harry Tremayne, a policeman, goes to an isolated valley in the remote Murchison region of Western Australia to find his brother - who vanished a month earlier while investigating the murder of a police detective. Do the gold smugglers at Breakaway House hold the answers to the mystery?

 

First published as a serial in the Perth Daily News in 1932, the real setting for the book is Mt Magnet, about 150k north of Perth, deep in gold country.

 

'It is somewhat less intense and less effective than the books in the Bony series, but it is successful as an early effort of Upfield's treatment of the Australian outback.' - Ray Browne, The Spirit of Australia