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Cover of Murder in Montparnasse

Murder in Montparnasse

Kerry Greenwood

First published 2005 · 400 pages

A sparkling, champagne-fueled romp through the 1920s that hides a surprisingly tender exploration of wartime scars.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like sipping a perfectly mixed gin cocktail in a jazz club—effervescent, sophisticated, and carrying a surprising kick. The narrative glides effortlessly between the sun-drenched, bohemian memories of post-war Paris and the bustling, dangerous docks of 1920s Melbourne. While the surface is all silk stockings, witty banter, and unapologetic glamour, a poignant undercurrent of wartime trauma and lingering grief gives the mystery unexpected emotional weight. The prose is sensuous and sharp, lingering on the tactile pleasures of haute couture and good food just as much as the mechanics of a murder plot. It is a delight for anyone who loves their historical mysteries anchored by a fiercely independent, fiercely loyal heroine who refuses to apologize for her appetites or her intellect.

Mood
  • glamorous
  • effervescent
  • nostalgic
  • shadowed
Tone
  • wry
  • sophisticated
  • feminist
  • breezy
  • poignant
Pace
brisk
Themes
lingering trauma of war · found family · unapologetic female independence · loyalty and mateship · clash of past and present
The writing
Sparkling and sensuous, with a sharp eye for period detail, haute couture, and witty repartee.
The arc
Moves from breezy, cocktail-soaked confidence into the darker, lingering shadows of wartime memory, before resolving in a satisfying, fiercely protective triumph.
Who it's for
Readers who crave a fiercely independent, unapologetically glamorous heroine solving murders with a cocktail in one hand and a pearl-handled pistol in the other.
Content notes
  • war trauma and PTSD
  • murder
  • grief

About the book

Always enticing in divine twenties fashion, Phryne, one of the most exciting and likeable heroines in crime writing today, leads us through a tightly plotted maze of thrilling adventure set in 1920s Australia.The divine Phryne Fisher returns to lead another dance of intrigue.Seven Australian soldiers, carousing in Paris in 1918, unknowingly witness a murder and their presence has devastating consequences. Ten years later, two are dead... under very suspicious circumstances.Phryne's wharfie mates, Bert and Cec, appeal to her for help. They were part of this group of soldiers in 1918 and they fear for their lives and for those of the other three men. It's only as Phryne delves into the investigation that she, too, remembers being in Montparnasse on that very same day.While Phryne is occupied with memories of Montparnasse past and the race to outpace the murderer, she finds troubles of a different kind at home. Her lover, Lin Chung, is about to be married. And the effect this is having on her own usually peaceful household is disastrous.'Phryne Fisher is young, wealthy, beautiful, smart, confident and independently minded... and she has a knack for solving murders when she is not sipping a strengthening cocktail or planning another seduction.' The Australian's Review of Books

Description from Open Library.

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