Murder in the Dark
By (Author) Kerry Greenwood
Allen & Unwin
Allen & Unwin
1st September 2006
Main
Australia
General
Fiction
823.914
Winner of Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award 2003 (Australia)
Paperback
312
Width 128mm, Height 195mm, Spine 25mm
301g
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.
Greenwood's strength lies in her ability to create characters that are wholly satisfying: the bad guys are bad, and the good guys are great. * Vogue *
Elegant, fabulously wealthy and sharp as a tack, Phryne sleuths with customary panache... [she is] irresistibly charming * The Age *
Phryne Fisher is gutsy and adventurous, and endowed with plenty of grey matter. * West Australian *
In a word: delightful * Herald Sun *
Kerry Greenwood is the author of more than forty novels, six non-fiction works and the editor of two collections.