Murder in the Dark (Phryne Fisher Series #16) Book

Its 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. Phryne is in two minds about going. But when threats begin arriving in the mail, she promptly decides to accept. No one tells Phryne Fisher what to do. At the Manor House, she is accommodated in the Iris room, and at the party dallies with 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. The jazz is as hot as the drinks are cold. It all seems like good clean fun until three people are kidnapped, one of them the abominable child, and Phryne must save the party from further disaster.

Publishers Weekly

Australian author Greenwood's fine Phryne Fisher mystery combines suspense and humor with a taut race to unmask a master assassin before he can strike again. The irrepressible and defiantly unflappable Phryne Fisher decides to attend a lavish four-day celebration in Melbourne, "the Last Best Party of 1928," despite anonymous and deadly warnings to keep away, which include a coral snake. One of the party's hosts, Gerald Templar, becomes worried after Tarquin, the orphan boy he's adopted, disappears. The connection between Tarquin's vanishing and the escalating acts of violence from the killer who calls himself the Joker is far from obvious, and Fisher has no shortage of suspects to consider among the eccentric guests, including a man who's modeled himself on Oscar Wilde. The Joker's identity will surprise many readers, but as usual for this long-running series (Cocaine Blues, etc.), the major pleasures come from Greenwood's wry voice and the larger-than-life Fisher. (Mar.)