The Yellow Joss and Other Tales

This is the first of Idriess's books presented as separate short stories that I have read. This differs from other books where he collects stories of a similar theme in a single book. Idriess assures us in the Authors Note that these happenings and incidents are transcripts of fact, or based on fact, taken from people whom he takes as reliable. He does go on to say “unusual though an occasional one may seem.” And there are some which are more than odd.

It is an interesting collection, of broad subject matter, but consistent with Idriess's common touchpoints - Aboriginal Cape York in Northern Australia, the Coral Sea, Papua New Guinea - pearl, trochus and beche-de-mer divers, beachcombers, gold prospectors / miners and other ragtag adventurers.

Most of the stories are short and while on the topic of his other books (written both before and after this one from 1934), they almost all exist well as stand alone stories, which may be why they were not woven in to his longer narratives.

It did fade a little for me near the end - perhaps 5 or 6 of the last 10 stories might have been subject to a stronger editing, but that is splitting hairs really.

A good pick-up put-down book, easy to read and worth the effort. 4 stars.

as an aside I found an unedited transcript of an interview with Idriess in 1970 by Tim Bowden of the Australian ABC. It is pretty poorly transcript-ed - despite being unedited they could have tidied up some of the incorrect words and missing words, many of which were obvious. It is however a rambling and often off tangent interview - Bowden has trouble keeping Idriess on point, but it has some interesting insights. By 1970 Idriess had written his last of his over 50 books (Challenge of the North in 1969).
https://www.abc.net.au/rn/legacy/programs/radioeye/documents/idriess.pdf