'Phryne Fisher is gutsy and adventurous, and endowed with plenty of grey matter.' West Australian
Our unflappable, unconventional and uninhibited heroine, The Honourable Phryne Fisher, leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back. In her first three adventures, she encounters communism, cocaine, kidnappers and murderers. Phryne handles everything- danger, excitement and love - with her inimitable panache and flair, and still finds a little time for discreet dalliances and delicious diversions.
In Cocaine Blues, the London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Hon. Phryne cannot face any more flower arranging, polite conversation with retired Colonels or dancing with weak-chinned men - and decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia. From the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is immediately embroiled in exotic and erotic mystery.
Phryne steps up again in Flying Too High, handling a murder, a kidnapping and the usual array of beautiful young men who cluster around her with style and consummate ease - and all before it's time to adjourn to the Queenscliff Hotel for breakfast. Whether she's flying planes, trying to clear a friend of homicide charges or searching for a kidnapped child, she employs the same dash and elan with which she drives her beloved red Hispano-Suiza.
In Murder on the Ballarat Train, the glamorous Phryne, accompanied by her loyal maid, Dot Williams, decides to travel to the country by train, but the last thing she expects is to have to use her trusty Beretta .32 to save their lives. What was planned as a restful country sojourn turns into the stuff of nightmares: a young girl who can't remember anything, rumours of vile white slavery and the body of an old woman missing her emerald rings.
'Phryne Fisher, an investigator with all the charm, wit and intelligence of James Bond, and as many lovers.' Sunday Sun
'With Phryne Fisher, the indefatigable Greenwood has invented the character-you-fall-in-love-with genre.' The Australian