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 degrees 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 three series, 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. 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 twenty 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. In 2003 Kerry won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Association.

Reviews

From its exotic Australian locale, through its fascinating 1920s setting, to its flamboyant heroine, Greenwood's Phryne (rhymes with Briny) Fisher series is a winner on all counts. Occupying center stage is Phryne's eclectic household, populated by her adopted daughters, cuddly pets, worshipful domestics, and current lover, the gorgeous Lin Chung. Greenwood does a masterful job of imparting history lessons within the context of a suspenseful story. This time, with a plot centering on what happened to seven Australian soldiers on leave in Paris during World War I, she sprinkles the tale with cameos by various real-life figures, including Alice B. Tokias, and reflects on the lingering psychological effects of the Great War. Two of Phryne's friends among the group of seven who caroused together in Paris ask Phryne to look into the suspicious deaths of two of their mates. As she investigates, Phryne, an ambulance driver in France during the war, remembers her own experiences in Paris. Brimming with glamour, high life, and a hint of debauchery, Greenwood's series delivers a literary glass of champagne, lifting readers' spirits while tickling their fancies. -- Jenny McLarin, Booklist
(6/01/2004)

The suspense is ratcheted up steadily, as
Greenwood plunges the reader into a fascinating past. This is the first of her thirteen novels to be published by Poisoned Pen Press. Readers will impatiently await the next exciting tale by a writer withan assured style. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. - Janet Overmyer, I Love A Mystery Newsletter

Phryne Fisher-dangerous, passionate, kind, clever, and seductive. She drinks cocktails, dances the tango, and is expert at conducting an elegant dalliance-oh, and she solves crimes. Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead ... under very suspicious circumstances.
Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal
to her for help. They were part of this group
of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives
and for those of the other three men. It's only as
Phryne delves into the investigation that she, too,
remembers being in Montparnasse on that very
same day.
While Phryne is occupied with memories of
Montparnasse past and the race to outpace the
murderer, she finds troubles of a different kind
at home. Her lover, Lin Chung, is about to be
married. And the effect this is having on her own
usually peaceful household is disastrous.
"Phryne Fisher is young, wealthy, beautiful, smart,
confident and independently minded ... and she
has a knack for solving murders when she is not
sipping a strengthening cocktail or planning
another seduction."
-The Australian's Review of Books

Set in the 1920s, Australian author Greenwood's U.S. debut introduces the engaging Phryne Fisher, an independent, unconventional PI whose competence and unflappability call to mind Dorothy Sayers's Harriet Vane. Fisher is confronted with two puzzles to unravel-the disappearance of a young woman set to marry a much older man and the strange deaths of two ex-soldiers that have been officially judged accidental. A couple of the dead men's surviving mates, Bert and Cec, seek Fisher's help, and she employs her varied army of allies to ascertain whether the troops shared some information that was dangerous to someone now bent on wiping them all out. When clues point to a shared experience in Paris during WWI, the ghosts of an old but lingering trauma from Fisher's early love life reawaken with a vengeance. Greenwood's language is almost Wodehousian at some points, and she surrounds her sleuth with a diverse supporting cast, including her prudish butler, her Chinese lover and an accommodating police inspector who knows when to look the other way. While the narrative's prime twist stems from an artificial device, and the main villain's identity is too obvious, the charm of the setting and the characters more than compensates. (June 21) FYI: Poisoned Pen plans to publish the 13 other books in the series. Greenwood recently won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Crime Writers Association. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

From its exotic Australian locale, through its fascinating 1920s setting, to its flamboyant heroine, Greenwood's Phryne (rhymes with Briny) Fisher series is a winner on all counts. Occupying center stage is Phryne's eclectic household, populated by her adopted daughters, cuddly pets, worshipful domestics, and current lover, the gorgeous Lin Chung. Greenwood does a masterful job of imparting history lessons within the context of a suspenseful story. This time, with a plot centering on what happened to seven Australian soldiers on leave in Paris during World War I, she sprinkles the tale with cameos by various real-life figures, including Alice B. Tokias, and reflects on the lingering psychological effects of the Great War. Two of Phryne's friends among the group of seven who caroused together in Paris ask Phryne to look into the suspicious deaths of two of their mates. As she investigates, Phryne, an ambulance driver in France during the war, remembers her own experiences in Paris. Brimming with glamour, high life, and a hint of debauchery, Greenwood's series delivers a literary glass of champagne, lifting readers' spirits while tickling their fancies. -- Jenny McLarin, Booklist
(6/01/2004)
The suspense is ratcheted up steadily, as
Greenwood plunges the reader into a fascinating past. This is the first of her thirteen novels to be published by Poisoned Pen Press. Readers will impatiently await the next exciting tale by a writer withan assured style. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. - Janet Overmyer, I Love A Mystery Newsletter
Phryne Fisher-dangerous, passionate, kind, clever, and seductive. She drinks cocktails, dances the tango, and is expert at conducting an elegant dalliance-oh, and she solves crimes. Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead ... under very suspicious circumstances.

Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal
to her for help. They were part of this group
of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives
and for those of the other three men. It's only as
Phryne delves into the investigation that she, too,
remembers being in Montparnasse on that very
same day.
While Phryne is occupied with memories of
Montparnasse past and the race to outpace the
murderer, she finds troubles of a different kind
at home. Her lover, Lin Chung, is about to be
married. And the effect this is having on her own
usually peaceful household is disastrous.
"Phryne Fisher is young, wealthy, beautiful, smart,
confident and independently minded ... and she
has a knack for solving murders when she is not
sipping a strengthening cocktail or planning
another seduction."
-The Australian's Review of Books