Australia is undoubtedly a ‘new’ country in the terms of recorded history, and it makes research hard for any contemporary author. Do not mistake me, there is a lot of good Australian historical fiction that has been wonderfully researched, but many lack the glamour and style that Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series has in spades. I first experienced Miss Fisher as the television adaption created by the ABC, which enchanted me with the decadent costumes, Australian sets, and the vivacious characters. Even with an entertaining two seasons of Miss Fisher, I wanted more, so I turned to reading the original novels.

The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher is a modern woman for 1928; sporting a black bob cut, luxurious clothes, a wealth of money, and an abiding desire for handsome young men. Phryne left her family behind in England and returned to her birth place, Melbourne, where she soon discovered that she had an aptitude for work as a ‘lady detective’. This novel is the sixth in the series and had a very different approach, and I am divided on whether I liked it or not. The previous five novels had Phryne working her way through the various levels of Melbourne society, conducting her investigations with an air of confidence and a degree of stylish sleuthing. However, in Blood and Circuses, Phryne is bored with her comfortable life, and is persuaded to help her carnival friends to help the ill-fated Farrell’s Circus.

Phryne doesn’t know how to help her friends but she decides it would be easiest to go undercover, to get close to the circus people by being amongst them. She becomes Fern Williams, an aspiring horseback performer who is eager to ask questions on the questionable future of the circus. As Phyrne busies herself into the circus scene, a valued member of the troupe, Mr Christopher, is brutally murdered in Melbourne. Not to fear as the reliable Detective Inspector Jack Robinson is called onto the cast. A former trapeze circus performer, Miss Parkes, is suspected of the murder but Jack is not convinced. The evidence to convict her was so easily found, and killer needed a more sinister motive than any Miss Parke can hold. Greenwood begins to deepen the mystery by including the unrest stirring between two gang circles of lower Melbourne, and a hushed organisation known as ‘EXIT’ smuggling wanted criminals out of the country.

Jack suspects the sudden gang violence is not only related to EXIT but remotely linked to the troubles of Farrell’s Circus, which means that Phryne buried herself in very dangerous territory. Whilst the Police deals with the murders and gangs, Phryne was having equally hard time find a place in the circus life. She was being ignored, snubbed, and the victim of vicious circus gossip; the strong and wily Miss Fisher that was established over the last five novels was being stripped away. Phryne found that she missed the distinction of her wealth and position, and she had returned to her impoverished youth (which was a living nightmare for Phryne).  She did find allies, and a new lover, but it is not enough to stop her from falling into the hands of the dangerous Mr Jones, the man expected of bringing misfortune on the circus.

This wild element of fear and loneliness really clashed with my image of Phryne, questioning if I truly liked her. Thinking about her sudden incapability to take control of her situation, Phryne still manages to fight those in control, which I still see as a test of true strength and honest resolve, all admirable. Blood and Circuses is one of the better mysteries so far; as Greenwood takes us beyond the scintillating parties and high fashion of Phryne Fisher’s known element, to a completely different society that lives on the fringes of normal society and operates under its own rules.