Phryne Fisher is doing one of her favorite things --
dancing at the Green Mill (Melbourne's premier dance hall)
to the music of Tintagel Stone's Jazzmakers, the band who
taught St Vitus how to dance. And she's wearing a
sparkling lobelia-coloured georgette dress. Nothing can
flap the unflappable Phryne--especially on a dance floor
with so many delectable partners. Nothing except death,
that is.
The dance competition is trailing into its
last hours when suddenly, in the middle of "Bye Bye
Blackbird" a figure slumps to the ground. No shot was
heard. Phryne, conscious of how narrowly the missile
missed her own bare shoulder, back, and dress,
investigates.
This leads her into the dark smoky
jazz clubs of Fitzroy, into the arms of eloquent
strangers, and finally into the the sky, as she follows a
complicated family tragedy of the great War and the
damaged men who came back from ANZAC cove.
Phryne
flies her Gypsy Moth Rigel into the Autralian Alps, where
she meets a hermit with a dog called Lucky and a wombat
living under his bunk....and risks her life on the love
between brothers.