Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher (Phryne Fisher Mysteries)

The Hon Phryne Fisher is a unique, beautiful, stylish, sexy and larger than life character who romps through adventure after adventure in Melbourne in 1928 and 1929.What luck that a member of the Australian Kindle Users forum recommended this fantastic series by Australian author Kerry Greenwood. Even luckier is that I started reading the series before it sceened as an ABC TV series. It is always better to get to know a character from the book before they are converted into a screenplay. This bundle is also the best and most economical way to get hooked on a most unusual, enjoyable and satisfying detective series.But let me start by telling you something about Phryne. She was born in Melbourne to impoverished descendants of an aristocratic and wealthy UK family. "I was born in very poor circumstances. Bitterly poor. Then (due to the Great War) several people died and I was whisked away into fashion and wealth. I enjoy it greatly." But Phryne was not content to live a life of wealth and luxury - she wanted action in her life and spent time in the seedy parts of Paris before heading back from England to Australia to help a family friend.In this bundle of the first 3 books in the series we see her arrive in Melbourne and immediately assert her independence. Within hours of arrival she connects with a couple of taxi drivers who become her long time helpers, books into the Hotel Windsor with dozens of trunks full of the latest fashion, and goes out looking for more fashion. There she meets and helps a distraught young woman, Dorothy, planning to kill her employer's lecherous son with a kitchen knife. After cleverly helping Dorothy to embarrass the son without any injury, she asks her to become her maid. Dorothy quickly becomes Phryne's maid, personal assistant close confident.Phryne then starts her many adventures and investigations. While set in the 1920's Phryne is a very modern heroine who is always the centre of attention, relishes every one of life's moments and leaves a trail of satisfied lovers in her wake.In Cocaine Blues she tracks down the king of cocaine in Melbourne, a backstreet abortionist and a poisoner. In the course of her investigations she meets Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, who is intially suspicious of her activities but later on gains great respect for Thryne's skills and helps her with many investigations.Phryne further develops her investigatory skills in Flying Too High, handling a murder, a kidnapping and showing her outstanding flying and wing walking skills in a Tiger Moth. She continues to attract, bed and enjoy some beautiful men. She employs the same dash and elan to driving her beloved red Hispano-Suiza as she does to her investigations.In Murder on the Ballarat Train, the glamorous Phryne, accompanied by her loyal maid, Dot, decides to travel to the country by train. The last thing she expects is to be chloroformed and find that one of the passengers has been dragged out of the carriage during the night and murdered. She also finds a young girl who can't remember anything, and rumours of white slavery of young girls. Despite the stress of the investigation Phryne can always find a little time for a dalliance and delicious diversion with young men.I almost guarantee that after reading this economical bundle you will want to join me in reading Phryne's many further adventures.

The Australian Television Series (available on PBS) brought me to the book - I"m always hoping the written story will offer more insight - and thanks to TV it's easy to picture actress Essie Davis as the lead character. Miss Fisher is a liberated woman of the 1920's who dashes about solving mysteries, living an uninhibited single life, and spending her apparently unlimited funds as if they, like the dropped waist, were going out of style. On television a delight to watch, particularly the fashions. If the character ever becomes too insufferably impressed with herself during a TV episode (which every once in a while does happen), you can admire the authenticity of the clothes.Although the titular narratives are similar, from reading these first three stories I can tell that liberties have been taken in the TV production with character backgrounds, personalities, and the role each plays in a particular story. These liberties made the stories, with their subplots, nicely unpredictable, even though I had already seen the TV version.There is also a surprising addition of romance novel narrative. Miss Fisher, in print, thankfully doesn't spend too much time admiring herself (aside from using the mirror), but she doesn't seem as mature as the average detective either. And the interaction with key series character Jack Robinson, positively magnetic in the series, is disappointingly dry and perfunctory in these three stories at least.I can only hope the next stories in her series offer a bit more, because like it or not, I am unrelentingly hooked. The astonishingly glamorous production values that attract me to the television series are not as prevalent in the stories; but there's no scarcity of historical description. I'll be interested to see Greenwood's more mature Fisher stories. She's got me in her basket.

Writers of crime and mystery novels commonly have either a central figure who features in every novel, like Lee Childs' Jack Reacher or John Le Carre's George Smiley, or a constant location like Florida or the Greek islands. We readers enjoy following a character we like, or visiting in imagination a location we are unlikely to visit in real life. Kerry Greenwood (Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher) gives us both: an intriguing heroine and the location of Melbourne, the second city of Australia - and as an extra twist her novels are set in about 1928, the relatively prosperous period between the First World War and the Great Depression. The mysteries are sometimes murders, but also kidnappings and other disappearances which Phryne Fisher is called on to solve - always successfully.Phryne is an intriguing character - late 20s in age, beautiful in appearance, with inherited wealth, who practises as a private investigator for the fun of it. She dresses extravagantly, eats and drinks very well (we get lots of culinary and alcoholic detail) and coaxes men to bed with ease and in impressive variety. I must confess that I don't worry very much about the solutions to the mysteries; I enjoy Phryne and her adventures in a city I know quite well and happily. The novels do not challenge the reader's intellect but they are easy, lighthearted relaxation.

This omnibus edition features the first three novels in the Phryne Fisher series and they are a good introduction to the series and the character. They are set in Australia in the 1920s and feature the Honourable Phryne Fisher who has gone from rags to riches.When we first meet her in Cocaine Blues she is unmasking a would be thief and then travelling to Melbourne, Australia to try and find out what is happening in the life of Lydia Andrews. In the process of finding it out she meets Dot Williams who has left her job and is thinking of committing murder. Phryne rescues her and employs her as a maid and then goes on to uncover a drugs ring and an illegal abortionist as well.If you've read Leslie Charteris' books featuring the Saint you will recognise some of the same devil may care quality in Phryne. She takes lovers on a whim and uses her not inconsiderable powers of attraction to get what she wants. She is intelligent and quick thinking as well as adventurous. Life, to her, is for living.Flying Too High - the second book in this collection features a kidnapping and a murder. Phryne is asked to help a friend clear his name when he is accused of murdering his father and to find a small girl who has been kidnapped. Candida, the kidnap victim, is a marvellous character who keeps her head in a dangerous situation and saves herself from worse harm by being sick over one of her captors. The story includes a nail biting chase involving the criminals, Phryne and her friends in a plane and a car.Murder on the Ballarat Train - the third book in this collection and the third in the series involves Phryne and Dot in a dangerous situation on a train where they are only minutes from death. Unfortunately one of the passengers is found dead and her jewellery is missing. Can Phryne and Dot investigate and find out what happened?I dithered for quite some time over whether or not to read this series and I'm glad I made up my mind in the end to read it. Phryne is a marvellous character and I love her quick thinking and adventurous qualities. I also enjoy reading about her clothes but she is far from being a fashionable clothes horse and is not afraid of getting her hands dirty. If you enjoy the Daisy Dalyrmple series by Carola Dunn then you may well enjoy Phryne Fisher too.

Miss Fisher is sexy , uninhibited , stylish and with a soft heart for the underdog and the oppressed.She seems to dance through her adventures , but there is a solid core of realism about the chauvenistic societyof Melbourne in the 1920s.This is "light" reading at its very best ....well researched , well written , and thoughtful .

Charming, fun, funny, well written and well plotted…full of references to historical events, persons and literatures…amusing and entertaining…good show…

Having watched and greatly enjoyed the series shown on the television, I decided to buy the books. I found the book not only easy to read but the story lines made it un-put-down-able. Adding the rest of the series to my library will be a must

I not started reading it yet but looks great like miss fisher will begin book soon