Dec 22, 2007 Posted by Nancy Williams on Dec 22, 2007 in Books read, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction, Recommended Books | 0 comments

Cocaine Blues – Kerry Greenwood

Introducing Phryne Fisher – intelligent, beautiful, wealthy and seductive, with more than her fair share of wit and sass, and a desire to find something more distracting to occupy herself than flying planes, driving fast cars or listening to boring society talk. In the first of the Phryne Fisher mysteries, our heroine takes herself to Melbourne. It is the late 1920s, and within days she is caught up with discovering who is running a cocaine racket, who is butchering young women by delivering amateur abortions, and who are the most interesting people in Melbourne society. This all interspersed with some delicious sex with a Russian ballet dancer and some fashionable clothes shopping, it is impossible not to love Phryne by the end of this book.

Kerry Greenwood has created a heroine-extraordinare. This is the first of more than 30 books and I can see why the character has persisted. She is just wonderful. Despite her wealth, she never forgets her working class roots. She takes pity on scorned ladies maids and roughened taxi drivers and doesn’t shirk about spending money with outrageous ease. Her intelligence gets her out of several rather dangerous situations and the end of the book sees her deciding that perhaps being a lady investigator might be an amusing diversion after all. Accompanied by her new ladies maid, I can see that this is the start of a lot of fun. My only sadness is that the Phryne Fisher novels, although available in the UK, appear to be a little more difficult to come by. I will be getting them sent over in parcels along with Tim Tams and Violet Crumbles.

My only criticism about this book was that it appears the first couple of chapters, introducing Phryne and having her embark on her journey to Melbourne were edited within an inch of their lives. I suspect Greenwood had embellished these chapters a lot more than the final draft, but because they were almost incidental to the story, were cut. Because of that, I did struggle through the first 15 or 20 pages because the writing was shallow, but I persisted because these books had been recommended to me. I am glad I did. As the story developed, the writing improved by the page and I was sad to say goodbye to Phryne at the end. Fortunately, this is certainly not the end. I am now out on the hunt for book 2.

Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 1-74114-566-X
Published: Allen & Unwin
Year: 2005 (first published in 1989)
Date finished: 19 December 2007