Phryne Fisher is bored by the London society. When she gets a proposition to do some amateur sleuthing in Australia, she immediately grabs the opportunity and boards a ship to Melbourne.
And there she starts her amateur sleuthing, which is fine by me. It´s your typical run-of-the-mill amateur sleuth plot. And the plot isn´t the reason why I have become increasingly more annoyed with every chapter that I have read. That honour belongs to Miss Phryne Fisher herself, but I will come back to that.
The very first thing that bugged me about this book were the never-ending descriptions of Phryne´s wardrobe, which I couldn´t care less about. Luckily Greenwood toned down on these description towards the end, but only because Phryne doesn´t wear hardly any clothes in the latter part of the novel. Instead she parades naked in front of a bunch of men, who doesn´t seem to be bothered by her nakedness at all. Kudos to these men, they have more willpower than Phryne has.
Because let´s have a look at her encounter with Sasha, her love interest. After the sex he says:
“Perhaps you will bear my baby,” commented Sasha. Phryne smiled. Carried away by passion she certainly was, but her diaphragm had been in place since last night.
The comment of this guy is gross. I would have kicked him out of bed and showed him the door. But Phryne smiles and she is thinking of sleeping with this douchebag again.
And a diaphragm, which has been in her womb for about 12 hours, doesn´t prevent her from getting pregnant. Quite the contrary. A diaphragm, which is used in combination with a spermicidal gel, has a pearl index of 1-20. The pearl index tells you, how many women out of 100 get pregnant while using said protection. Phryne´s diaphragm, which has been inside of her for a couple of hours, must have a pearl index of at least 50. Because there can´t be any spermicide left on that diaphragm, maybe she didn´t use one to begin with. The series contains twenty books and based on Phryne´s lifestyle, she has to become pregnant in book four the latest. But I suppose that doesn´t happen.
But of course, Phryne is some sort of wonder woman. If she doesn´t want to get pregnant, she doesn´t get pregnant. Raised in a poor environment, she became rich by inheritance. She knows how to deal with both the poor and the rich people. And there isn´t anything she can´t do. A professional gunman showed her how to use a gun, a professional female racing car driver showed her how to drive a racing car and she is even skilled in the art of street fighting:
Although trained in street fighting by apache masters […]
Oh please, give me a break. This book is a big pile of garbage and I would claim that Phryne is a Mary Sue of the worst kind. I can´t stand that women.
The only thing I liked about this book where the secondary characters. And this is not enough.
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