RogerBW's Blog

Urn Burial, Kerry Greenwood 12 July 2014

Eighth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series (1920s flapper detective in Australia); a homage to the novels of Agatha Christie.

That's both good and bad. The obligatory setting of an isolated country house works well, and all the expected stock characters are here (some beautiful young men, a jolly hockey girl, a scandalous lady novelist, a crusty old military man, a foreign poet, some dotty old ladies). But we're detached from the usual support characters; no Bert and Cec, no adopted daughters, no Inspector Jack Robinson.

Lin Chung, Phryne's lover met in the previous book, returns as her companion at the house party, and I fear that in bending over backwards to avoid racism Greenwood falls instead into orientalism and exoticisation: neither he nor his servant ever makes a single wrong step, the servant is an expert in the martial arts who effortlessly restrains people with a touch, and Lin himself is prone to go off on flights of exotic philosophy (not to mention endlessly comparing the incomparably beautiful Phryne to a Manchu princess). Mind you, Phryne never gets anything wrong either; she always teeters on the edge of being a Mary Sue, but for me at least hasn't quite toppled over. I'd still be happier if she made the occasional error, or perhaps disagreed with someone who turned out to be right.

The mystery plot is, as one would expect from a Christie homage, convoluted, perhaps too much so; everyone has a secret, and I felt that there wasn't enough in the way of information to let one identify the villain. Structurally, most of those secrets are revealed after the main plot is resolved, rather than (as a more conventional mystery would do it) being used gradually to remove characters from contention as the principal evildoer; this leads to a curiously anticlimactic final chapter. Greenwood also sets out to subvert expectations about the sort of people one meets in a Christie book, and largely succeeds, though one character's name is far too much of a giveaway. Things come screeching to a halt towards the end for a sudden lecture on geology, but there's a well-described trip through a cave which reminded me of Nevada Barr's excellent Blind Descent.

Not entirely typical of the series, but might be a good entry point if you don't want to start at the beginning. Followed by Raisins and Almonds.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Ruddy Gore | Series: Phryne Fisher | Next in series: Raisins and Almonds

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1