Cirrus@Austlit

'The elegant Miss Phryne Fisher returns in this scintillating collection, which features four brand-new stories.

'The Honourable Phryne Fisher - she of the Lulu bob, Cupid's bow lips, diamante garters and pearl-handled pistol - is the 1920s' most elegant and irrepressible sleuth.

'Miss Phryne Fisher is up to her stunning green eyes in intriguing crime in each of these entertaining, fun and compulsively readable stories. With the ever-loyal Dot, the ingenious Mr Butler and all of Phryne's friends and household, the action is as fast as Phryne's wit and logic.' (Publication summary)

The 1920's most talented and glamorous detective, Phryne Fisher, handles a murder, a kidnapping and the usual beautiful young men with style and consummate ease - and all before it's time to adjourn to the Queenscliff Hotel for breakfast. (Source: back cover, 1990 edition)

There are some things that Phryne Fisher finds intolerable. Having her windscreen shattered by a bullet as she is driving past Melbourne's Victoria Dock...or discovering that bullets from the same gun have entered the body of a beautiful seventeen year old. Not to mention the ruin of her fur and lingerie as she holds the dying, bleeding boy...Phryne swears she will track down the young man's killer, and in doing so stumbles across the plans for a bank robbery and possible massacre...But then her beloved maid Dot is kidnapped and nothing can distract Phryne from revenge.' (Source: back cover, 1992 McPhee Gribble edition)

'Gorgeous in her sparkling lobelia-coloured georgette dress, delighted by her dancing skill, pleased with her partner and warmed by the admiring regard of the banjo player, Miss Phryne Fisher had thought of tonight as a promising evening at the hottest dancehall in town, the Green Mill. But...in jazz-mad 1920s Melbourne, Phyrne finds there are hidden perils in dancing the night away - like murder, blackmail and young men who vanish.' (Source: back cover, 2005 Allen and Unwin edition)

'Phryne Fisher is bored. So when she is asked to investigate some strange goings-on in Farrell's Circus and Wild Beast Show, her curiosity gets the better of her. Stripped of her identity, wealth and privileges, Phryne takes a job as a trick horse-rider...But what connects the circus with the particularly nasty murder in Mrs Witherspoon's house for paying gentlefolk?...Piecing together fragments from the seedy underworld of twenties Firtzroy and the eccentric life under the big top, Phryne proves her mettle yet again, aided only by her wits, an oddly attractive clown, and a stout and helpful bear.' (Source: back cover, 1994 edition)

'The glorious Phryne Fisher returns to the spotlight in her seventh adventure. Running late to the Hinkler gala performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, Phryne Fisher meets some thugs in dark alley and handles them convincingly before they can ruin her silver dress.

'Phryne then finds that she has rescued a gorgeous Chinese, 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 it's an unexpected evening as her night is again 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 St or the actors treading the boards of His Majesty's Theatre? Drawn backstage and onstage, Phryne must solve an old murder and find a new murderer and, of course, banish the theatre's ghost, who seems likely to kill again.' (From the publisher's website.)

'It's Christmas, and Phryne has an invitation to the Last Best party of 1928, a four-day extravaganza being held at Werribee Manor House and grounds by the Golden Twins, Isabella and Gerald Templar. She knew them in Paris, where they caused a sensation. Phryne is in two minds about going when she starts receiving anonymous threats warning her against attending. She promptly decides to accept the invitation - after all, no one tells Phryne what to do. At the Manor, she is accommodated in the Iris room, and at the party meets two polo-playing women, a Goat lady (and goat), a large number of glamorous young men and a very rude child called Tarquin. The acolytes of the Golden Twins are smoking hashish and dreaming, and Phryne finds that the jazz is as hot as the drinks are cold and indulges in flirtations, dancing, and mint juleps. Heaven.

It all seems like good clean fun until three people are kidnapped, one of them the abominable child, and Phryne must puzzle her way through the cryptic clues of the scavenger hunt to retrieve the hostages and save the party from disaster.' (Publisher's blurb)

'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.

'Travelling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza accompanied by her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth and their dog Molly, The Hon Miss 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 the mystery of a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably towards a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. But what information might the curious Surrealists be able to contribute? 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.' (From the publisher's website.)

'The divine and fearless Miss Phryne Fisher returns in her 20th adventure in a vastly entertaining tale of murder, spies, mathematics and music.

'To the accompaniment of heavenly choirs singing, the fearless Miss Phryne Fisher returns in her 20th adventure with musical score in hand.

'An orchestral conductor has been found dead and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson needs the delightfully incisive and sophisticated Miss Fisher's assistance to enter a world in which he is at sea. Hugh Tregennis, not much liked by anyone, has been murdered in a most flamboyant mode by a killer with a point to prove. But how many killers is Phryne really stalking?

'At the same time, the dark curls, disdainful air and the lavender eyes of mathematician and code-breaker Rupert Sheffield are taking Melbourne by storm. They've certainly taken the heart of Phryne's old friend from the trenches of WW1, John Wilson. Phryne recognises Sheffield as a man who attracts danger and is determined to protect John from harm.

'Even with the faithful Dot, Mr and Mrs Butler, and all in her household ready to pull their weight, Phryne's task is complex. While Mendelssohn's Elijah, memories of the Great War, and the science of deduction ring in her head, Phryne's past must also play its part as MI6 become involved in the tangled web of murders.

'A vastly entertaining tale of murder, spies, mathematics and music. ' (Publisher's blurb)

'Surrounded by secrets, great and small, the formidable Miss Phryne Fisher returns to vanquish injustice.

'When a mysterious invitation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown Captain Herbert Spencer, Phryne's curiosity is excited. Spencer runs a retreat in Victoria's spa country for shell-shocked soldiers of the First World War. It's a cause after Phryne's own heart but what could Spencer want from her?

'Phryne and the faithful Dot view their spa sojourn as a short holiday but are quickly thrown in the midst of disturbing Highland gatherings, disappearing women, murder and the mystery of the Temperance Hotel.

'Meanwhile, Cec, Bert and Tinker find a young woman floating face down in the harbour, dead. Tinker, with Jane and Ruth, Phryne's resilient adopted daughters, together decide to solve what appears to be a heinous crime.

'Disappearances, murder, bombs, booby-traps and strange goings-on land Miss Phryne Fisher right in the middle of her most exciting adventure.' (Publication summary)

'Accustomed to both murder and dalliance, Australia's favourite detective, the inimitable Miss Fisher, returns in a case that will test her courage and judgement to the full.

'When the redoubtable Miss Phryne Fisher receives threatening letters at her home, she enlists the unflappable apprentice Tinker to investigate. But as the harassment of Phryne threatens to spin out of control, her lover, Lin Chung is also targeted.

'Meanwhile, Dot begins to fear that her fiance, newly promoted Sergeant Hugh Collins, has gone cold on setting a date for their wedding.

'Phryne's clever daughters, Ruth and Jane, begin their own investigation into suspiciously dwindling funds when they are sent to help at the Blind Institute.

'None of this is quite enough to prevent Phryne from accepting an invitation to a magnificent party at the house of the mysterious Hong. When the party is interrupted by shocking tragedy, Phryne gathers all of her unerring brilliance to track down the miscreants. With some unlikely assistance, Phryne is in a race against time to save a pair of young lovers from disgrace and death.' (Publication summary)