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)
