Well, I must say Kerry Greenwood's Murder on the Ballarat Train is a fun little cozy mystery that has a kick to it. You sort of expect cozies to be all refined and uppercrust but still low key action-wise, and whilst Phryne Fisher is refined, she's also intelligent, very independent and extremely gutsy. It's 1928 and she's quite the modern woman in all senses of the word. This is one cozy mystery that juxtaposes the lush with the gritty and the heroine quite happily has thrown off the shackles of her parent's Victorian society in favor of a more adventurous lifestyle (both in and outside of the boudoir).
Quite a while ago I read the first Phryne Fisher novel, Cocaine Blues. Although I can't quite recall the mystery or solution, Phryne has always stayed with me. I should really go back and skim for more of the details, but what I do remember is that she was raised in England in a family with no money but with the right pedigree. She eventually comes into an inheritance and decides to try her luck as a lady detective in Melbourne, so off she goes. She's got a taste for the lavish lifestyle, has the most divine wardrobe, drives a Hispano-Suiza, yet having grown up poor means she she knows how the other half lives and remains sympathetic to those less well off. Phryne reminds me a lot of another "Honourable", Daisy Dalrymple, though the Phryne Fisher mysteries are decidedly edgier. I like them equally well. Phryne is more street smart than Daisy and likely to find herself in more unsavory situations, but she can always take care of herself.
I like a heroine who in the opening chapter reaches inside her handbag and grabs a .32 Beretta!
"The clasp of the handbag seemed impossibly complex, and finally, swearing under her breath and gasping for air, she tore it open with her teeth, extracted her Beretta .32 with which she always traveled, and waveringly took aim. She squeezed off a shot that broke the window."
Moments later she proceeds to pull the cord to stop a moving train--something she had always wanted to do. What started out as a simple trip to Ballarat ends in death. There might have been more than one victim in the chloroform-filled first class car had it not been for the quick thinking of Phyrne. There's one person missing from the traincar, an elderly lady who had been traveling with her daughter, whose body is found later laying by the tracks. The mystery isn't just who killed the woman and why but also how they managed to dump the body without being seen. Things become murkier when a young girl is found alone in the station having traveled by herself and with no clear memory of the events or her own identity. She's obviously a victim of trauma and locked away in her mind is the face of a killer.
To be honest the mystery isn't especially difficult to figure out or surprising when the murderer is revealed, but the great fun of the novel is Phryne herself. She's a larger than life sort of character. As I was reading I had pictured in my mind an actress from the early days of Hollywood like Louise Brooks and all the action happening as in a 1930s black and white film with all these wonderful scenes on a fast moving train. It's the atmosphere of the story that is so entertaining. Phryne really could be a Flapper, leading a decadent life in the "Roaring Twenties" and getting herself involved in murder. Even the secondary characters are fun--Dot, her loyal maid; Bert and Cec, owners and proprietors of a taxi service and great friends of Phyrne (willing to do a little dirty work if necessary, though don't worry they're the good guys); and Detective-Inspector Robinson who has a high regard for Phryne and her detective business. I'm hoping to get more of a taste of life Down Under since I believe the bulk of the stories are set in Melbourne and other parts of Australia. I don't read Australian authors as often as I should, so I'm hoping she writes more about the culture and society.
I was halfway through Murder on the Ballarat Train when I discovered it wasn't the second in the series but the third. I prefer reading mystery series in order, though it didn't seem to matter in this case. Now I'll go back to Flying too High to fill in the gap. Phyrne might be a little too strong a character or independent-minded for some readers, but I get a kick out of her and will keep reading through the series. The stories are quick, fluffy reads and just the thing when you want a taste of the high life ca. 1928!