By a lonely roadside in the south-west corner of Western Australia, old-timer Karl Mueller is roused from his drink-sodden sleep by approaching footsteps and the sound of whistling. What he sees on waking (or thinks he sees) is enough to make him stiffen with fear, and more than enough to worry the police into calling for Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.

The disturber of Mueller's rest is Marvin Rhudder - once an upstanding theological student, now a convicted rapist and basher and a bloody savage whose recapture will put all of Bony's sleuthing and tracking skills to the test.