Phryne Fisher is back and hasn’t she been a busy lady! This is her 22nd adventure, set in 1929, but she only moved to Melbourne in 1928 so a lot has happened very quickly. As her companion, Dot, thinks to herself, ’And what a year it had been!’
In this latest episode, there are several mysteries to unravel. Someone is leaving crude notes, made from letters cut from newspapers, condemning Phryne’s moral standards, followed by an intruder peering in the bedroom window one night. Her adopted daughters, Ruth and Jane, have found accounting inconsistencies at the Blind Institute when placed there as part of their school’s Good Works program. Dot is worried that her fiancé, policeman Hugh Collins, is getting cold feet because she has hardly seen him and his excuses are vague. And, of course, Phryne comes across a dead body on the beach and attends a party where the host is stabbed to death in front of his guests.
With Tinker as sleuth on the first case and Jane and Ruth on the second, it is up to Phryne to pry into the close-knit Chinese community to provide clues to Jack Robinson about the murders and associated opium-smuggling racket. There are a lot of loose ends to tie up.
This book is very busy and not quite as cohesive as previous Phryne adventures. Some of the mysteries do not have much depth. But it is still enjoyable. The grounding of the plot on real places and real people gives it credibility and it is lovely to have all our beloved characters back.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Greenwood was born in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray and after wandering far and wide, she returned to live there. She has a degree in English and Law from Melbourne University and was admitted to the legal profession on the 1st April 1982, a day which she finds both soothing and significant. Kerry has written twenty novels, a number of plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D’Arcy, is an award-winning children’s writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. In 1996 she published a book of essays on female murderers called Things She Loves: Why women Kill.
The Phryne Fisher series (pronounced Fry-knee, to rhyme with briny) began in 1989 with Cocaine Blues which was a great success. Kerry has written sixteen books in this series with no sign yet of Miss Fisher hanging up her pearl-handled pistol. Kerry says that as long as people want to read them, she can keep writing them.
Kerry Greenwood has worked as a folk singer, factory hand, director, producer, translator, costume-maker, cook and is currently a solicitor. When she is not writing, she works as a locum solicitor for the Victorian Legal Aid. She is also the unpaid curator of seven thousand books, three cats (Attila, Belladonna and Ashe) and a computer called Apple (which squeaks). She embroiders very well but cannot knit. She has flown planes and leapt out of them (with a parachute) in an attempt to cure her fear of heights (she is now terrified of jumping out of planes but can climb ladders without fear). She can detect second-hand bookshops from blocks away and is often found within them.
For fun Kerry reads science fiction/fantasy and detective stories. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered wizard. When she is not doing any of the above she stares blankly out of the window.
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