It was a murder mystery writer’s worst nightmare come true. In 1929 Arthur Upfield, Australia’s premier crime writer, plotted a perfect murder for his novel The Sands of Windee. To his horror, one of his friends, stockman Snowy Rowles, put the scheme into deadly effect even before the book was published. The result was Western Australia’s most sensational murder trial of the 1930s.

In a proper review of the Snowy Rowles Case it is impossible to disregard my work as a novelist; because, although I did not provide Rowles with a motive, and in no way an accessory before or after the fact, the Crown alleged that I did provide him with a method of destroying the bodies of the victims.” (Arthur W. Upfield – 1934) 217 x 142mm.