Another instalment in the Phryne Fisher mystery series. This story sees Phryne elected as queen of a local flower festival, traumatic enough on its own, but throw in a runaway daughter in search of her natural father, the return of an old lover, the disappearance of one of her parade attendants and a couple of elephants and Phryne is in for a very busy time indeed.
As if that wasn’t enough, the missing attendant turns up near drowned and it is up to Phryne to save her life, keep her hidden from those who would have her killed and find her attempted murderers.
She manages to do all this and more with poise, wit, impeccable grooming and time left over to visit the festival bazaar.
Kerry Greenwood reliably provides a good read and this book does not disappoint. For Phryne fans this story develops some of the secondary characters but it does not assume an acquaintance with the series and unobtrusively explains the relationships between the characters for those coming newly to Phryne’s world.
Some elements of the story could have so easily have followed the path of least resistance and been obvious but instead they take an unexpected turn that prevents them from wallowing in predictability.
I did see one of the twists coming but the writing is of such quality that rather than be irritated with this I actually felt clever that I’d been able to work it out in advance. Now that shows Greenwood’s skill.
I could wax lyrical about how enjoyable this story was (great character development, beautiful description that truly invokes the period, interesting story line, fantastic balance of historical fact to fictional events, well paced) but I’m sure I’ve said it all before and if I haven’t then undoubtedly Alex has.
A very enjoyable read that was over much too soon, Queen of the Flowers is for lovers of ‘modern’ history and crime fiction alike. Highly reccommended.-Lynn
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