2012 historical detection, nineteenth in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher
series (1920s flapper detective in Australia). Pregnant girls are
going missing from the Magdalene Laundry; an intrepid, if not too
bright, reporter gets on their trail, then goes missing too.
Which means lots of investigation around the laundry and its
ancillary functions, and Greenwood tries to keep an even hand: sure,
these people are cruel and the conditions are terrible, but the
church is shown to have some virtues as well rather than being
villainous for the sake of it. (Though there's very little mention of
the other side of the deal, how the rest of society was happy to look
the other way in return for having somewhere out of sight that
pregnant unmarried women could be sent.)
The subject matter is generally darker than in some of the previous
books, with various sorts of abuse of children, and even Phryne is
overcome at times. Some threads are tied off before others, which
makes the ending a little drawn-out and laboured. But the seriousness
of the crimes is effectively balanced by Phryne's no-nonsense approach
to identifying, tracking and catching the villains as she passes
through brothels, a gay club (apparently historical, though largely
fanciful as records are scant), a newsroom, and much worse places.
Clearly, Mrs. Donnelly had to be added to the bag. And what seemed to
be an increasing crowd on the gallows. It was going to be like Tyburn
Fair Day. Phryne would have to buy a new hat.
Of course this is still a Greenwood, so you know that certain sorts of
people will never be the villains, but there's definitely more meat to
this than some of the recent volumes which are rather more of the
"What fun!" school of detection. This book sees a welcome return of
Phryne the avenger as well as giving us Phryne the clever thinker as
usual. Followed by Murder and Mendelssohn
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