Death
Before Wicket
A Phryne Fisher
Mystery
Kerry Greenwood
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-170-9 (1590581709)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-170-4 (9781590581704)
Publication Date: January 2008
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Phryne Fisher is on holiday. She means to take the
train to Sydney (where the harbour bridge is being built), go to a few
cricket matches, dine with the Chancellor of the university and perhaps
go to the Arts Ball with that celebrated young modernist, Chas Nutall.
She has the costume of a lifetime and she's not afraid to use it.
When she arrives there, however, her maid Dot finds that her extremely
respectable married sister Joan has vanished, leaving her small
children to the neglectful care of a resentful husband. She rescues the
children, but what has become of Joan, who would never leave her
babies? Surely she hasn’t run away with a lover, as gossip
suggests?
Phryne must trawl the nightclubs and bloodtubs of Darlinghurst to find
out. And while Phryne is visiting the university, two very pretty young
men, Joss and Clarence, ask her to find out who has broken into the
Dean's safe and stolen a number of things, including the Dean's wife's
garnets and an irreplaceable illuminated book called the Hours of Juana
the Mad. An innocent student has been blamed.
So there is no rest for the wicked, and Phryne girds up her loins,
loads her pearl handled .32 Beretta, and sallies forth to find mayhem,
murder, black magic, and perhaps a really good cocktail at the Hotel
Australia.
Review: Ostensibly on holiday Phryne Fishers travels from her home in Melbourne to the nation's capital of Sydney in Death Before Wicket, the 10th mystery in this entertaining series by Kerry Greenwood.
In fact, Phryne has been summoned to Sydney through a circuitous route
of introductions to look into the disappearance of an eclectic
assortment of items from a safe at a local university. A classmate of
two young men who act as Phryne's escorts in Sydney has been accused of
the crime. No sooner has Phryne agreed to investigate then her personal
and confidential maid, Dot, reports that her sister is missing,
abandoning her husband and children. As a personal favor to Dot, Phryne
also agrees to find her, determine why she disappeared, and bring her
home. It hardly seems like an ideal way of spending a holiday for most
people, but Phryne is certainly in her element.
Death Before Wicket is
definitely one of the better books in this series, possibly because,
despite the heat of Sydney, Phryne seems fresher and more energetic
than in recent outings. Much to her surprise, the theft turns out to be
far more complicated that she originally imagined. "I began to
investigate it at the insistence of two young men anxious to clear
their friend's name. Now I'm up to my elbows in black magicians, tarot
cards, foretellings and secrets, and I'm beginning to get quite cross",
she says to one of the university professors. Greenwood has clearly
done a considerable amount of research on ancient Egyptian mythology
and modern Australian cricket and seems to draw parallels between them.
Maybe they exist but they're likely to be lost on those readers not
intimately familiar with both. Not understanding won't affect one's
appreciation of the overall book, but it's possible that having some
familiarity with either or both will enhance it. At times the plot
appears to be more complicated than it needs to be but that's possibly
the author's purpose since the motive behind the crime is really quite
simple and the identity of the culprit foreshadowed early in the book.
As for locating Dot's missing sister, Phryne shows a lot of imagination
and resourcefulness in tracking her down and ultimately reuniting her
with her family.
Phryne's sexual proclivities are a standard part in these mysteries
and, while their inclusion often seems gratuitous and unnecessary, for
the most part they are fairly innocuous. In Death Before Wicket,
however, they appear to be particularly distasteful and are the only
significant distraction (and not in a good way) to an otherwise
terrific book.
Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Death Before Wicket for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series (listed in order of their original publication in Australia; ISBNs and publication dates are for books available from Poisoned Pen Press) ...
Cocaine Blues
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2006
ISBN: 1-59058-236-5 (1590582365)
Flying Too High
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), July 2006
ISBN: 1-59058-237-3 (1590582373)
Murder on the
Ballarat Train
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), October 2006
ISBN: 1-59058-241-1 (1590582411)
Death at
Victoria Dock
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), December 2006
ISBN-10: 1-59058-238-1 (1590582381)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-238-1 (9781590582381)
The Green Mill
Murder
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-240-3 (1590582403)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-240-4 (9781590582404)
Blood and
Circuses
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), July 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-235-7 (1590582357)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-235-0 (9781590582350)
Ruddy Gore
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), June 2005
ISBN: 1-59058-118-0 (1590581180)
Urn Burial
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), December 2005
ISBN: 1-59058-169-5 (1590581695)
Raisins and
Almonds
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), November 2007
ISBN-10: 1-59058-168-7 (1590581687)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-168-1 (9781590581681)
Death Before
Wicket
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), January 2008
ISBN-10: 1-59058-170-9 (1590581709)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-170-4 (9781590581704)
Away with the
Fairies
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), January 2005
ISBN: 1-59058-022-2 (1590580222)
Murder in
Monparnasse
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), June 2004
ISBN: 1-59058-042-7 (1590580427)
The Castlemaine
Murders
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), September 2004
ISBN: 1-59058-117-2 (1590581172)
Queen of the
Flowers
Death by Water
Murder in the
Dark
Omnimystery keywords for Death Before Wicket
...
Location(s) referenced: Sydney, Australia.