Arthur W. Upfield 
The Mountains Have a Secret [EPUB ebook] 

In the Grampian Mountains, two girl hitch-hikers have disappeared without trace, and the policeman sent to investigate has been murdered. Bonaparte visits the lonely hotel where the girls were last seen, and meets up with the suave proprietor, his strangely terrified father, an ex-US paratrooper with a penchant for knife-throwing, and a talking parrot…
All in all, this is a high suspense drama, and a fine Upfield story. — From
The Spirit of Australia by Ray Browne.
Bony — a unique figure among top-flight detectives — BBC