"A red mooplane stolen from a flying circus is found the next day on a dried up lake bed nearly two hundred miles away. The unknown young woman in the passenger seat is alive and conscious but totally paralysed. The pilot is missing, but without any tracks showing that he left the machine after landing. It seems a situation from the world of nightmare. This extraordinary case takes Napoleon Bonaparte, the half-caste detective, to an outback cattle station in western Queensland. There, in a race against time, Bony sets out to unravel the bewildering puzzle, with the help of an old aboriginal chief." - from the jacket of the 1972 Heinemann edition

"A stolen airplane lands on a waterless lake in the far west of Queensland. In the cockpit is a beautiful girl, drugged and paralysed. There is no trace of the pilot. Within twenty-four hours the plane is destroyed and an attempt made to poison the helpless stranger. Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, the fearless half-aborigine detective, turns to the unearthly powers of an ancient tribal chieftan and seer to outwit a conspiracy and save a life." - from the cover of Pan's 1965 edtion

"In the center of waterless Emu Lake, John Nettlefold and his daughter Elizabeth, out on a survey of his cattle station, find a bright red monoplane with an unconscious girl in the front seat. There are no human tracks on the sandy surface of the lake except for their own. They take the girl home but the doctors cannot help her. She appears to be conscious but unable to move even her eyes and it seems she will die. Bony has to delve into the past to solve the problem of the downed pilotless plane and the mysterious girl, and has to summon the help of Chief Illawalli to save the doomed girl." – from "The Armchair Detective

Location: Coolibah Station (fictional) on the Diamantina River, Queensland.

Wings above the Diamantina was first published by Angus and Robertson of Sydney in 1936. A British edition was published in 1937 by Hamish Hamilton of London and the the book was retitled Winged Mystery. American and Canadian editions followed in 1943, titled Wings above the Claypan; the American edition was printed by the Doubleday Crime Club and the Canadian by McClelland and Stewart. A Pan edition from 1973 is pictured above. It shows a scene from Norfolk International's "Boney" Television series. Note that Bony is spelled differently in the television series. A variety of covers and jackets are shown below.