This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure. Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back.
The first of Phryne's adventures from Australia's most elegant and irrepressible sleuth.
The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the green-grey eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions - is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia.
Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communism - not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse - until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.
With Phryne Fisher, the indefatigable Greenwood has invented the character-you-fall-in-love-with genre.' The Australian
About The Author
Kerry Greenwood is the author of twenty-seven novels and the editor of two collections. Previous novels in the Phryne Fisher series are Flying too High, Murder on the Ballarat Train, The Green Mill Murder, Blood and Circuses, Death on the Victoria Dock, Ruddy Gore, Urn Burial, Raisins and Almonds, Death Before Wicket, Away with the Fairies, Murder in Montparnasse, The Castlemaine Murders and Queen of the Flowers. She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series.
When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates' Court for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.
Industry Reviews
"With Phryne Fisher, the indefatigable Green-wood has invented the character-you-fall-in-love-with genre." --The Australian "With Phryne Fisher, the indefatigable Greenwood has invented the character-you-fall-in-love-with genre." --The Australian "With Phryne Fisher, the indefatigable Greenwood has invented the character-you-fall-in-love-with genre." "--The Australian"
"The tricky plot, lively writing, likable flapper sleuth, and superb sense of period will delight readers who have already read (or will be motivated to seek) later books in the series already issued by Poisoned Pen." --"Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine""The growing American audience for Phryne Fisher, Australian author Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth, will be delighted that her diverting first mystery is finally available in the U.S." --"Publisher's Weekly"
"This series is the best Australian import since Nicole Kidman, and Phryne is the flashiest new female sleuth in the genre." --"Booklist" starred review of "Away with the Fairies" "With Phryne Fisher, the indefatigable Greenwood has invented the character-you-fall-in-love-with genre." "--The Australian"
"The tricky plot, lively writing, likable flapper sleuth, and superb sense of period will delight readers who have already read (or will be motivated to seek) later books in the series already issued by Poisoned Pen." --"Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine" "The growing American audience for Phryne Fisher, Australian author Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth, will be delighted that her diverting first mystery is finally available in the U.S." --"Publisher's Weekly"
"This series is the best Australian import since Nicole Kidman, and Phryne is the flashiest new female sleuth in the genre." -"Booklist" starred review of "Away with the Fairies" "The growing American audience for Phryne Fisher, Australian author Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth, will be delighted that her diverting first mystery is finally available in the U.S. Fisher's off-the-cuff solving of a high society jewel theft leads her to her first professional engagement when a witness to her brilliance asks her to investigate a possible poisoning-in-progress. The detective's admirable willingness to intervene to help those in distress involves her in a variety of other puzzles, including identifying the King of Snow, who has taken over the Melbourne drug trade. Many of the members of Fisher's entourage familiar from later novels make their debuts as well."
--Publishers Weekly 1-30-2006
