Cocaine Blues
Part 1 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Cocaine Blues, the first historical mystery featuring the sensual, posh, and intrepid murder detective Phryne Fisher…
"Phryne can not get enough of adventure and the reader can not get enough of Phryne."-Deadly Pleasures
Looking for a riveting historical mystery series? This book is for you:
Perfect for Fans of Rhys Bowen and Dorothy Sayers
Inspired the Netflix show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, starring Essie Davis
Movie Currently Streaming on Acorn TV
The London season is in full fling at the end of the roaring 1920s, but the Honourable Phryne Fisher-she of the green-gray 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. Tension and danger rise like steam, and Phryne must save herself and other young women before it's too late. Find these historical mystery series in Kindle books or in print-this lady detective will chase criminals to the end of the line!
Flying Too High
Part 2 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
"Readers will find themselves throughly entertained by this oddly appealing mix of the jaunty and the macabre."-Booklist
Casey and Death are on the run…again. After obtaining new identification and throwing herself off the grid, she travels to Florida to begin a new life as Daisy Gray, fitness instructor for a wealthy, enclosed community. But even while keeping her head down, it doesn't take long for Casey to find herself in the middle of trouble. One of the residents is attacked, and Casey is the one to find her, bleeding on the tile floor of the locker room. Despite heroic attempts, the woman dies, and the community is thrown into turmoil. The cops are at a loss, unable to find anyone who might want the woman dead.
Despite Death's urgings to go on the run again, Casey takes a careful look at the victim's life and asks who could have wanted her dead. The free-wheeling residents? The staff? And what, if anything, might Casey's predecessors in her new job have to do with it? Time to dig in and ask, even with Death on her back.
Flying Too High
Part 2 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Walking the wings of a Tiger Moth plane in full flight would be more than enough excitement for most people, but not for Phryne-amateur detective and woman of mystery, as delectable as the finest chocolate and as sharp as razor blades. In fact, the 1920s' most talented and glamorous detective flies even higher here, handling a murder, a kidnapping, and the usual array of beautiful young men with style and consummate ease. And she does it all before it's time to adjourn to the Queenscliff Hotel for breakfast. Whether she's flying planes, clearing a friend of homicide charges, or saving a child, Phryne does everything with the same dash and elan with which she drives her red Hispano-Suiza.
Murder on the Ballarat Train
Part 3 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, now streaming on Netflix, starring Essie Davis as the honourable Phryne Fisher
"As usual, Greenwood populates the novel with an assortment of offbeat characters...and Phryne has plenty of opportunities to unleash her acid tongue and apply her razor-sharp wit." -Booklist
The Hon. Phryne Fisher, languid and slightly bored at the start of 1929, has been engaged to find out if the antique-shop-owning son of a Pre-Raphaelite model has died by homicide or suicide. He had some strange friends-a Balkan adventuress, a dilettante with a penchant for antiquities, a Classics professor, a medium, and a mysterious supplier who arrives after dark on a motorbike. Simultaneously, she is asked to discover the fate of the lost illegitimate child of a rich old lady, to the evident dislike of the remaining relatives.
With the help of her sister Beth, the cab drivers Bert and Cec, and even her two adoptive daughters, Phryne follows eerie leads that bring her face-to-face with the conquest of Jerusalem by General Allenby and the Australian Light Horse, kif smokers, spirit guides, pirate treasure maps, and ghosts.
Death at Victoria Dock
Part 4 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
"Golden age fans will appreciate how Sikander works his way through an array of suspects. Once again, Gaind successfully blends detection with history." -Publishers Weekly STARRED review
December, 1911. All of India is in a tizzy. A vast tent city has sprung up outside the old walled enclave of Mughal Delhi, where the British are hosting a grand Durbar to celebrate the coronation of the new King, George V. From across India, all the Maharajas and Nawabs have gathered at the Viceroy of India's command to pay homage and swear loyalty to the King Emperor, the first monarch of England to travel out to India personally.
Maharaja Sikander Singh of Rajpore is growing increasingly bored, cooling his heels at the Majestic Hotel as he awaits George V's arrival. Just as his frustration is about to peak, a pair of British officers shoulders in. They insist that he accompany them to the British Encampment. Irked, but his curiosity piqued, Sikander agrees. To his surprise, they take him to the King Emperor's quarters where Sikander's old school friend, Malik Umar Hayat Khan, the Durbar herald, awaits. Malik Umar is serving Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy and the highest-ranked Englishman in the country. Lord Hardinge, overruling several subordinates, tells Sikander that his services as a sleuth are needed by King and country. Sworn to secrecy, Sikander is ushered into George V's personal chambers.
And there he finds the cause for his extraordinary summons-an exquisite nautch-girl, hanged until dead. Employing techniques he has learned from studying Eugene Vidocq and Sherlock Holmes, Sikander examines the scene and demonstrates the girl was not a suicide, but murdered.
Her death at the very heart of the encampment could ruin the enormously costly celebration and spark deep political repercussions in India and in England. Under this pressure, the Viceroy hands Sikander both the case to solve and a ticking clock-he must complete his investigation before George V arrives. And under the surveillance of one Captain Campbell of an elite British regiment.
The list of suspects and motives is too large, the number of hours for the task too few. But he gave his word and so the Maharaja must put his skills to work. In the end, Sikander wishes he had not.
The Maharaja Mysteries are perfect reading for fans of Tarquin Hall, Barbara Cleverly, and the late HRF Keating-and Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Coyle.
Death at Victoria Dock
Part 4 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Driving home late one night, Phryne Fisher is surprised when someone shoots out her windscreen. She alights to finds a pretty young man with an anarchist tattoo dying on the tarmac just outside the dock gates. He bleeds to death in her arms...and all over her silk shirt. Enraged by the loss of the clothing, the damage to her car, and this senseless waste of human life, Phryne promises to find out who is responsible. But she doesn't yet know how deeply into the mire she'll have to go: bank robbery, tattoo parlors, pubs, spiritualist halls, and Anarchists. Then when someone kidnaps her cherished companion, Dot, Phryne will stop at nothing to retrieve her.
The Green Mill Murder
Part 5 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
"Definitely not for the faint of heart but just right for readers who like a gritty crime novel with a labyrinth of plot twists." -Library Journal
A former U.S. Senator vanishes days after his son goes missing. When they're both found dead on a golf course in Mexico, body parts missing, the Senator's estranged daughter Rachel resolves to discover what happened.
Private investigator Cape Weathers doesn't really want the case. He can't stand politicians and doesn't know the terrain. But when it looks like the daughter may become the next victim, Cape crosses the border looking for answers.
Cape asks his deadly companion Sally, trained by the Hong Kong Triads, to watch his back as he stumbles onto a conspiracy that leads from corporate boardrooms in San Francisco to drug cartel strongholds in Mexico. Together they confront a killer determined to bury the past as well as anyone trying to dig it up. Miles away from home and nowhere near the answers, Cape manages to get kidnapped, steal from the mob, piss off the DEA, alienate the local police, confound a computer genius, and somehow lose the client he's been protecting all along.
Blood and Circuses
Part 6 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Blood and Circuses, the next historical mystery featuring an unstoppable, elegant amateur sleuth. Can Miss Fisher uncover the truth without losing her life?
Looking for a thrilling detective novel? This story is:
• Perfect for Fans of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear
• Inspired the Netflix show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
• Movie Currently Streaming on Acorn TV
Phryne Fisher is bored. Life appears to be too easy, too perfect. Her household is ordered, her love life is pleasant, the weather is fine. And then a man from her past arrives at the door. It is Alan Lee from the carnival. Alan and his friends want her to investigate strange happenings at Farrells Circus, where animals have been poisoned and ropes sabotaged. Mr. Christopher has been found with his throat cut in Mrs. Witherspoon's irreproachable boarding house and Miss Parkes, an ex-performer, is charged with his murder.
Phryne must go undercover deeper than ever to solve the circus malaise. She must abandon her name, her title, her protection, her comfort, even her clothes. She must fall off a horse twice a day until she can stay on. She must sleep in a girls' tent and dine on mutton stew. She must find some allies-and maybe a circus romance. Meanwhile, in Melbourne, the young and fresh-faced policeman Tommy Harris has to solve his own mysteries with the help of the foul-spoken harridan Lizard Elsie, or Miss Parkes will certainly hang. Can Phryne take on this great circus mystery before disaster strikes?
Ruddy Gore
Part 7 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Mary Ryan, San Francisco pastry chef, is happy to be teaching at her old alma mater. But before long, she realizes the teaching staff are at loggerheads with each other. Adding to her dismay, ex-lover and Homicide Detective O'Connor has enrolled as a student, claiming to be on disability from the San Francisco Police Department.
In the middle of this turf war, Mary is ordered by dean Robert Benson to force Coolie Martin to leave the school or lose her job. But why would Coolie's father, a member of the Board of Directors, allow this to happen? Then when faculty and staff begin dying, Mary fears Coolie's forced exit might be part of a larger, more sinister plot.
Acting on a hint from O'Connor, Mary is soon knee deep in murder, money-laundering, blackmail, professional sabotage, and computer hacking, and must rush to uncover the truth before the bodies start stacking up..
Ruddy Gore
Part 7 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Running late to the Hinkler gala performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, Phryne Fisher meets some thugs in a dark alley and handles them convincingly before they can ruin her silver dress. Phryne then finds that she has rescued the handsome Lin Chung and his grandmother and is briefly mistaken for a deity. Denying divinity but accepting cognac, she later continues safely to the theatre. But the unexpected continues as the performance is interrupted by a most bizarre death onstage. What links can Phryne possibly find between the ridiculously entertaining plot of Ruddigore, the Chinese community of Little Bourke Street, and the actors treading the boards of His Majesty's Theatre? Drawn backstage and onstage, Phryne must solve an old murder, find a new murderer and of course, banish the theatre's ghost-who seems likely to kill again.
Urn Burial
Part 8 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
What would it be like to return to your hometown after twenty-five years in prison for a crime you have maintained you did not commit? And why would you return?
Walter Desmond is back in Trafalgar, British Columbia, having been officially exonerated when new evidence showed corruption at worst, incompetence at best, by the Trafalgar City Police running the investigation. His pitbull attorney is seeking five million in damages from the provincial government. But Walt has not returned to Trafalgar to pursue money or revenge. He just wants to know the why of it.
The family of the murdered girl, Sophia D'Angelo, is bitterly determined to see Walt returned to prison-or dead. But for Trafalgar's police, including Sergeant John Winters and Constable Molly Smith, the reality is: if Walter didn't kill Sophia, someone else did.
So, case reopened. It lands on Winters' desk. The records are moldering. One investigating officer is dead, the other is retired-and not talking. The police force are instructed to treat Walt as if he'd never been arrested or convicted. Someone else apparently killed Sophia, someone still walking free.
But too many minds remain closed. It's good luck for Walt that a group of women in town for the dragon boat race are staying in the B&B where he's booked-women with no local prejudices. But when a townswoman and a boat woman are attacked by a rapist, the media gets active, and tempers dangerously flare.
Raisins and Almonds
Part 9 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
"The fourth Ragtime Mystery is filled with warmth and wonder and interesting music trivia, buoyed by the relationship between the two sleuths, which may well echo that between the late Larry Karp and his son, who finished this final installment after his death." -Kirkus Reviews
It takes one moment in 2016 for ragtime music expert Alan Chandler to go from sitting in his hotel room in Sedalia, Missouri, to standing beside the King of Ragtime-Scott Joplin-at his upright piano in 1899. Chandler suddenly finds himself more than one hundred years earlier inside the famous Maple Leaf Club with its gas chandeliers, massive walnut bar, gaming tables, and pals surrounding the noted pianist and composer.
"What in the hell is going on? Am I dreaming?"
Clearly something unexpected is going on for Chandler in the fourth and final Ragtime Mystery by father and son Larry Karp and Casey Karp. A longtime friend Mickey Potash phones Chandler, top ragtime performer and national expert on Joplin, to say that a duffel filled with Joplin's handwritten music has surfaced. Chandler and his grandson, Tom, race from Seattle to Sedalia to evaluate what may be the most important find in popular American music. Potash shows them initial pages which look authentic, but before they can get the duffel hidden in a padlocked closet, he is tortured and murdered. The duffel is stolen.
Disappointment encourages a resurgence of symptoms in Chandler's Stage 4 cancer. He's determined to validate the music before time runs out. Tom, and later his wife, Miriam, help him. Another murder complicates their investigation. The trail to the duffel is crowded: Jackson and Saramae, two young people with journalism in their blood, want to solve the crime, as do homicide detectives and antique shopkeepers. Not surprisingly, the roots of the lost music lie in past emotional conflict, now tangled in genealogical warfare.
Raisins and Almonds
Part 9 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Phryne Fisher loves dancing, especially with gorgeous young Simon Abrahams. But Phryne's contentment at the Jewish Young People's Society Dance is cut short when Simon's father asks her to investigate the strange death of a devout young student in Miss Sylvia Lee's East Market bookshop. Miss Lee has been arrested for the murder, and Phryne believes that she is a very unlikely killer. Investigation leads her into the exotic world of Yiddish, refugees, rabbis, kosher dinners, Kadimah, strange alchemical symbols, and chicken soup. With help from the old faithfuls Bert and Cec, her taxi driver friends; her devoted companion Dot; and Detective Inspector "Call me Jack" Robinson, Phryne picks her way through the mystery. She soon finds herself at the heart of a situation far graver and more political than she at first appreciates. And all for the price of a song...
Death Before Wicket
Part 10 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Death at Victoria Dock, the next historical mystery featuring the wit and authenticity of Miss Fisher. When a terrible crime hits a little too close to home, Phryne will stop at nothing to seek out the truth.
"Those who like their heroines resourceful and their mystery plots leavened with humor will read this with pleasure."-Publishers Weekly
Looking for a thrilling detective novel? This book is for you:
• Perfect for Fans of Rhys Bowen and Jacqueline Winspear
• Inspired the Netflix show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
• Movie Currently Streaming on Acorn TV
Driving home late one night, Phryne Fisher is surprised when someone shoots out her windscreen. She alights to finds a pretty young man with an anarchist tattoo dying on the tarmac just outside the dock gates. Phryne does all she can to help, but soon realizes she holds death in her hands. He bleeds to death in her arms... and all over her silk shirt.
Enraged by the loss of the clothing, the damage to her car, and this senseless waste of human life, Phryne promises to find out who is responsible. These kinds of crimes simply don't happen in Victoria, Australia. But she doesn't yet know how deeply into the mire she'll have to go: bank robbery, tattoo parlours, pubs, spiritualist halls, and Anarchists. Then when someone kidnaps her cherished companion, Dot, Phryne will stop at nothing to retrieve her.
Away With the Fairies
Part 11 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, now streaming on Netflix, starring Essie Davis as the honourable Phryne Fisher
It's 1928 in Melbourne and Phryne is asked to investigate the puzzling death of a famous author and illustrator of fairy stories. To do so, Phryne takes a job within the women's magazine that employed the victim and finds herself enmeshed in her colleagues' deceptions.
But while Phryne is learning the ins and outs of magazine publishing first hand, her personal life is thrown into chaos. Impatient for her lover Lin Chung's imminent return from a silk-buying expedition to China, she instead receives an unusual summons from Lin Chung's family, followed by a series of mysterious assaults and warnings.
Murder in Montparnasse
Part 12 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
John, former Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, has been exiled from Constantinople to a rustic estate John has long owned in Greece, not far from where he grew up. But exile proves no escape from mystery and mayhem. The residents of nearby Megara make it plain John and his family are unwelcome intruders. His overseer proves corrupt. What of the other staff-and his neighbors?
Before long, John finds himself accused of blasphemy and murder. Now a powerless outsider, he's on his own, investigating and annoyingly hampered by the ruthless and antagonistic City Defender who serves Megara as both law enforcer and judge. Plus there's that corrupt estate overseer, a shady pig farmer, a servant's unwelcome suitor, a wealthy merchant who spends part of his time as a cave-dwelling hermit, and the criminals and cutthroats populating such a seedy port as Megara.
Complicating matters further are two childhood friends whose lives have taken very different paths, plus the stepfather John hated. John realizes that in Megara, the solution to murder does not lie in the dark alleys where previous investigations have taken him, but in a far more dangerous place-his own past. Can he find his way out of the labyrinth of lies and danger into which he has been thrust before disaster strikes and exile turns into execution?
Murder in Montparnasse
Part 12 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder, with devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead...under very suspicious circumstances. Phryne (pronounced Fry-Knee) Fisher's friends, Bert and Cec (sometimes cabbies and sometimes men for hire), 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 fatal day. Meanwhile, her lover, Lin Chung, is about to be married. And the effect this is having on her own usually peaceful household is disastrous...
The Castlemaine Murders
Part 13 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, now streaming on Netflix, starring Essie Davis as the honourable Phryne Fisher
"An unforgettable character, with a heart as big as her pocketbook, a fine disregard for convention and an insatiable appetite for life." -Denver Post
The fabulous Phryne Fisher, her sister Beth and her faithful maid, Dot, decide that Luna Park is the perfect place for an afternoon of fun and excitement with Phryne's two daughters, Ruth and Jane. But in the dusty dark Ghost Train, amidst the squeals of horror and delight, a mummified bullet-studded corpse falls to the ground in front of them. Phryne Fisher's pleasure trip has definitely become business.
Digging into this longstanding mystery takes her to the country town of Castlemaine where it's soon obvious that someone is trying to muzzle her investigations. With unknown threatening assailants on her path, Phryne seems headed for more trouble than usual....
Queen of the Flowers
Part 14 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
California zookeeper Theodora Bentley travels to Iceland to pick up an orphaned polar bear cub destined for the Gunn Zoo's newly installed Northern Climes exhibit. The trip is intended to be a combination of work and play. But on day two, while horseback riding near a picturesque seaside village, Teddy discovers a man lying atop a puffin burrow, shot through the head.
The victim is identified as American birdwatcher Simon Parr, winner of the largest Powerball payout in history. Is Teddy a witness-or a suspect? Others include not only Parr's wife, a famed suspense novelist, but fellow members of the birding club Parr had generously treated to their lavish Icelandic expedition. Hardly your average birders, several of them have had serious brushes with the law back in the States.
Guessing that an American would best understand other Americans, police detective Thorvaald Haraldsson grudgingly concedes her innocence and allows Teddy to tag along with the group to volcanoes, glaciers, and deep continental rifts in quest of rare bird species. But once another member of the club is murdered and a rockfall barely misses Teddy's head, Haraldsson forbids her to continue. She ignores him and, in a stunning, solitary face-off with the killer in Iceland's wild interior, concludes an investigation at once exotic, thrilling, and rich in animal lore.
Queen of the Flowers
Part 14 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
The circus is in town for St Kilda's first Flower Festival, which includes a parade. And who should be Queen of said Flowers but the Honorable Phryne Fisher? She has dresses to purchase, cinemas to visit, and agreeable cocktails to drink. However, one of her flower maidens is unstable and has vanished. So Phryne investigates, trudging through the underworld with the help of Bert, Cec, her little beretta, an old flame from Orkney, the owner of the most exclusive brothel in St Kilda, and several elephants. But when her own adopted daughter Ruth goes missing, Phryne is determined that nothing will stand in the way of her retrieving her lost child.
Death by Water
Part 15 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, now streaming on Netflix, starring Essie Davis as the honourable Phryne Fisher
"While memories of the Titanic linger among the ship's passengers, readers are treated to descriptions of sumptuous meals and snippets of Maori lore, along with a tantalizing mystery. Those who long to revel in a glamorous if imperfect past will be satisfied." —Publishers Weekly
The nice men at P&O are worried. A succession of jewelry thefts from the first-class passengers is hardly the best advertisement for their cruises. Especially when it is likely that a passenger is the thief.
Phryne Fisher, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, cupid's bow lips, and sense of the ends justifying the means, is just the person to mingle seamlessly with the upper classes and take on a case of theft on the high seas—or at least on the S.S. Hinemoa—on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. She is carrying the Great Queen of Sapphires, the Maharani, as bait.
There are shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous swains, mickey finns, jazz musicians, blackmail, and attempted murder, all before the thieves find out—as have countless love-smitten men before them—that where the glamorous and intelligent Phryne is concerned, resistance is futile.
Murder in the Dark
Part 16 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
"It's a perfect afternoon read that will provoke smiles. Almost cozy, with a Mr. Monk like ensemble cast, this series debut has tremendous potential."-Library Journal
Astrological detective David Lowell must use his chartsand knowledge to solve the murder of a state judge in a New York City parking garage. At the urging of his daughter Melinda, a young defense attorney, Lowell tries to prove the innocence of Johnny Colbert, a loud-mouthed bartender wrongly accused of the crime. Lowell's hacker sidekick Mort, his vivacious assistant Sarah, and their bodyguard Andy join them in their race against time. With birth charts and street smarts, Lowell sorts out a cast of characters, from the judge's clerk and her lawyer boyfriend to the judge herself, and traces the reason for the crime back to a surprising source.
Murder on a Midsummer Night
Part 17 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder
"This 1931 novel, now republished as part of the British Library's Crime Classics series, is a cunningly concocted locked-room mystery, a staple of Golden Age detective fiction." -Booklist STARRED review
Duchlan Castle is a gloomy, forbidding place in the Scottish Highlands. Late one night the body of Mary Gregor, sister of the laird of Duchlan, is found in the castle. She has been stabbed to death in her bedroom-but the room is locked from within and the windows are barred. The only tiny clue to the culprit is a silver fish's scale, left on the floor next to Mary's body.
Inspector Dundas is dispatched to Duchlan to investigate the case. The Gregor family and their servants are quick-perhaps too quick-to explain that Mary was a kind and charitable woman. Dundas uncovers a more complex truth, and the cruel character of the dead woman continues to pervade the house after her death. Soon further deaths, equally impossible, occur, and the atmosphere grows ever darker. Superstitious locals believe that fish creatures from the nearby waters are responsible; but luckily for Inspector Dundas, the gifted amateur sleuth Eustace Hailey is on the scene, and unravels a more logical solution to this most fiendish of plots.
Anthony Wynne wrote some of the best locked-room mysteries from the golden age of British crime fiction. This cunningly plotted novel-one of Wynne's finest-has never been reprinted since 1931, and is long overdue for rediscovery.
Dead Man's Chest
Part 18 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Traveling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza with her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth, and their dog Molly, Phryne Fisher is off to Queenscliff. She'd promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all. An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably toward a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed, but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl-handled Beretta in the other, no one is getting past her.
Dead Man's Chest
Part 18 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, now streaming on Netflix, starring Essie Davis as the honourable Phryne Fisher
Dot unfolded the note. "He says that his married couple will look after the divine Miss Fisher...I'll leave out a bit...their name is Johnson and they seem very reliable." Phryne got the door open at last. She stepped into the hall. "I think he was mistaken about that," she commented.
Traveling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza with her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth, and their dog Molly, Phryne Fisher is off to Queenscliff. She'd promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all.
An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably toward a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed, but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl-handled Beretta in the other, no one is getting past her.
Unnatural Habits
Part 19 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Dr. Kate Turner is happy with her new life in Oak Falls, upstate New York. Working as a relief veterinarian at a small house-call practice, she truly enjoys helping her patients.
All that changes when client Claire Birnham is found dead, an apparent suicide. A talented artist, Claire had everything to live for: new job, Manhattan apartment, her Cairn terrier Toto. As feisty as the Wizard of Oz Toto, he and Claire were devoted. Kate can't imagine Claire simply abandoning her pet. Was her death murder?
Questions end in the police arresting young kennel helper Eugene. The fragile friendship between Kate and police officer Luke Gianetti frays as she ignores his advice and keeps asking questions. House calls provide gossip and clues, some helpful, some not so much, as she treats her animal patients. Did Claire's recent insurance windfall prove too tempting for her hard-working and hard-drinking mother? What does trouble in the art gallery where Claire worked signal? How huge a grudge did heavy metal rocker A.J. hold against high-school sweetheart Claire after she dumped him? Was Claire a threat to AJ's rich new girl?
Dr. Kate mixes real medicine with murder as she risks her life over Claire's death, aided by insights from a former fire investigator, aka her Gramps. Unleashed is as irresistible as Muzzled.
Murder and Mendelssohn
Part 20 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
"With Moving Targets, Warren Easley delivers another humdinger of a tale featuring the City of Roses. But there's so much more to like about this story than just its evocative Portland setting. Cal Claxton is a guy worth rooting for, and the gang who aid him in solving the complex and dangerous mystery involved are a fun bunch to follow. If you're not familiar with these gems out of Oregon, now's the perfect time to give Warren Easely and Cal Claxton a try. You won't be disappointed." -William Kent Krueger, award-winning, bestselling author of Ordinary Grace and the Cork O'Connor series
When a young woman walks into Caffeine Central, Cal Claxton's law office in downtown Portland, he has no idea that agreeing to help her will turn his life upside down. His new client is the adopted daughter-"I'm brown and they're white"-of a Portland power couple famed for their real estate development firm and charitable work.
Sculptor Angela Wingate, once a wild child, and her recently widowed mother, Margaret, had grown close after years of estrangement. A grieving Angela is hesitant but nonetheless determined to learn if Margaret's recent death was a hit-and-run while out on her morning jog in her ritzy neighborhood, or something more-like murder. Angela is frustrated at the lagging police investigation and by her growing sense of something sinister at work.
As the ever-curious Cal begins to poke the principal players at Wingate Properties and to question Margaret's will, links surface between a lucrative riverfront project and a ruthless Russian ring. With a possible deadly foreign assassin in play, the threat level rises and the body count starts to grow.
Decidedly outgunned, Cal enlists his Cuban friend Nando, an enterprising investigator with an on-call hacker, and a bouncer at a strip club who knows the Russian underworld. And Cal gradually develops other allies-a skeptical police captain and a city councilwoman who opposes the massive riverfront project. In a separate battle, he recruits neighbors and officials who may help him kill the reboot of a quarry operation that threatens his beloved farmhouse home in rural Dundee, a loss that would also be tragic for his beloved dog, Archie.
Beneath this story run the narratives of several strong women connected to Cal who are learning just how powerful they can be as they change up their lives.
Death in Daylesford
Part 21 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library's archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, this classic crime novel, featuring the challenges of World War II, was written in the golden age of detective fiction.
"Any book by Michael Gilbert is a treat"-Daily Telegraph
A man is found dead in an escape tunnel beneath an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. Did he die in an accidental collapse-or was this murder? Captain Henry 'Cuckoo' Goyles, master tunneller and amateur detective, takes up the case.
This classic locked-room mystery with a closed circle of suspects is woven together with a thrilling story of escape from the camp, as the Second World War nears its endgame, and the British prisoners prepare to flee into the Italian countryside.
Perfect for readers of Sophie Hannah and Louise Penny!
Also in the British Library Crime Classics:
Smallbone Deceased
The Body in the Dumb River
Blood on the Tracks
Surfeit of Suspects
Death Has Deep Roots
Checkmate to Murder
Murder in Williamstown
Part 22 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher is up to her elegant eyebrows in mystery once again!
Awakening unusually early one morning, Phryne Fisher finds herself with a rare stretch of free time to fill. After dropping her daughters off for their school-sponsored charity work at the Blind Institute, she visits a university professor whose acquaintance she'd made--and admired--on a prior case. At lunch, the smitten professor invites Phryne to dine at his home in Williamstown later that week.
Bookending her pleasant dinner with her new friend Jeoffrey, Phryne makes two disturbing discoveries: first, a discarded opium pipe in the park, and later the body of a Chinese man on the beach--cause of death not apparent, yet ultimately ruled a homicide. Shortly thereafter, the teenaged sister-in-law of Phryne's longtime lover Lin Chung disappears from her home. But when one of Jeoffrey's colleagues is murdered in front of a houseful of guests at a Chinese-themed party he is hosting, Phryne can't help but wonder--are the incidents all related somehow? And who on earth has been leaving notes in her letterbox, warning her to "REPENT" and that "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH"--?
In addition to the formidable and fashionable Phryne, this clever mystery once again features Phryne's three wards with their own mysteries to solve: Ruth and Jane, tracking an embezzler at the Institute, and Tinker, whose help Phryne enlists to uncover the author of the threatening missives.
The Lady With the Gun Asks the Questions
The Ultimate Miss Phryne Fisher Story Collection
Part 22 of the Phryne Fisher Mystery series
In The Lady with Gun Asks the Questions, Kerry Greenwood distills the Phryne of her books and imagination. For those fans looking for greater character depth, a richer historical context of the twenties, and Phryne as her truest, freest self, Greenwood has curated just the right stories from her 21 novels and added four brand-new ones so we may meet the real fabulous Miss Fisher.
This Ultimate Miss Fisher Story Collection features four previously unpublished stories:
• The Boxer
• A Matter of Style
• The Chocolate Factory
• The Bells of St. Paul's