Cocaine Blues [Paperback]

This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure. Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back. The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honorable Phryne Fishershe of the green-gray eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositionsis rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia.Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communismnot to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisseuntil her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.The growing American audience for Phryne Fisher, Australian author Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth, will be delighted that her diverting first mystery is finally available in the U.S. Fisher's off-the-cuff solving of a high society jewel theft leads her to her first professional engagement when a witness to her brilliance asks her to investigate a possible poisoning-in-progress. The detective's admirable willingness to intervene to help those in distress involves her in a variety of other puzzles, including identifying the King of Snow, who has taken over the Melbourne drug trade. Many of the members of Fisher's entourage familiar from later novels make their debuts as well.