Phryne Fisher is doing one of her favorite things--dancing at the Green
Mill (Melbourne's premier dance hall) to the music of Tintagel Stone's
Jazzmakers, the band who taught St. Vitus how to dance. And she's
wearing a sparkling lobelia-coloured georgette dress. Nothing can flap
the unflappable Phryne--especially on a dance floor with so many
delectable partners. Nothing except death, that is.
The dance competition is trailing into its last hours when suddenly, in
the middle of "Bye Bye Blackbird" a figure slumps to the ground. No shot
was heard. Phryne, conscious of how narrowly the missile missed her own
bare shoulder, back, and dress, investigates. This leads her into the
dark smoky jazz clubs of Fitzroy, into the arms of eloquent strangers,
and finally into the sky, as she follows a complicated family tragedy of
the great War and the damaged men who came back from ANZAC cove. Phryne
flies her Gypsy Moth Rigel into the Autralian Alps, where she meets a
hermit with a dog called Lucky and a wombat living under his bunk....and
risks her life on the love between brothers.