First in a series of delightful and adventurous cosy crime tales featuring the glamorous and feisty Phryne Fisher.

Bored socialite Phryne Fisher leaves the tedium of the London season for adventure in Australia!

Tea-dances in West End hotels, weekends in the country with guns and dogs... Phryne Fisher - she of the grey-green eyes and diamante garters - is rapidly tiring of the boredom of chit-chatting with retired colonels and foxtrotting with weak-chinned wonders. Instead, Phryne decides it might be amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective - on the other side of the world!

As soon as she books into the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, drug smuggling rings and corrupt cops... not to mention erotic encounters with beautiful Russian ballet star Sasha de Lisse; England's green and pleasant land just can't compete with these new, exotic pleasures!