Phryne Fisher--dangerous, passionate, kind, clever and seductive. She
drinks cocktails, dances the tango, is the companion of wharfies, and is
expert at conducting an elegant dalliance.
It's the 1920s in Melbourne and Phryne is asked to investigate the
puzzling death of a famous author and illustrator of fairy stories. To
do so, Phyrne takes a job within the women's magazine that employed the
victim and finds herself enmeshed in her colleagues' deceptions.
But while Phryne is learning the ins and outs of magazine publishing
first hand, her personal life is thrown into chaos. Impatient for her
lover Lin Chung's imminent return from a silk-buying expendition to
China, she instead receives an unusual summons from Lin Chung's family
followed by a series of mysterious assaults and warnings.