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We recently met the unassuming but acutely perceptive Miss Jane Marple. “Miss Marple Tells a Story” brought us into our unassuming heroine’s mind, leading us through her powers of reasoning as she determined "whodunnit."

Agatha Christie was one of the first writers to introduce the female sleuth—a wildly popular mystery formula even today. Thanks to Christie, today we have a wonderful and rich range of women detectives, both amateur and professional.

This week features Australian writer Kerry Greenwood’s private investigator, Miss Phryne (rhymes with “briney”) Fisher. Set in the late 1920s in Melbourne, this series is a winner. Miss Fisher is anything but unassuming.  She will entertain you with her intelligence, courage, and charm.

I’m sorry to say that Kerry Greenwood died this past year. Read on to learn about Miss Fisher’s creator, writer extraordinaire Kerry Greenwood. Be sure to see the obituary I included by her life partner, David Greagg.

This is a revised write-up from last semester, with particular thoughts about “Deadweight.”

She began writing books at sixteen, but remained unpublished. In 1988 she entered one of her eight novels for the Vogel prize; although not successful, one of the judges offered her a contract for two detective novels.

Greenwood wrote numerous novels, historical fiction, science fiction, a number of plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D'Arcy. She was an award-winning children's writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. In 1996 she published a book of essays on female murderers called Things She Loves: Why women Kill.

The Phryne Fisher series began in 1989 with Cocaine Blues, which was a great success. An overview of her work includes:

• 22 historical Phyne Fisher novels + 3 short story collections

• 7 Corinna Chapman novels (written in alternate years with Miss Fisher)

• 16 assorted novels of various genres (history, science fiction, romance)

• 3 non-fiction works (crime-related)

• 1 cookbook

Kerry Isabelle Greenwood was a greatly loved and wonderfully kind person. She was born in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne.

Kerry met me at university, and she was the first person from her school ever to study law at the University of Melbourne. We moved into a precarious share house in Carlton, acquired our first cat and finished up in a weatherboard house in Seddon, where we stayed for the rest of Kerry’s long life.

The house is still standing, for obscure reasons. It is largely held up by books and spells, or possibly blind faith. It became a refuge for lost and stray animals, including cats, dogs, rabbits, ducks, possums, guinea-pigs, waifs and runaway – and in one case, a pregnant goat. Most were returned to their humans, but Quark accepted the position of watch-duck and lived out a long and happy life as warden of the back garden.

Despite her humble antecedents, and battling ill health since birth, Kerry had two burning ambitions in life: to be a Legal Aid solicitor and defend the poor and voiceless; and to be a famous author. When summoned to Government House to receive her Medal of the Order of Australia in 2020, it was made clear that this award was for writing books. More than 60 of them.

But the central core of her heart was her passion for justice. The only time Kerry was ever at a loss for words was when an impertinent man accused her of waxing fat on the profits of crime. When she recovered from her outrage, she tartly informed him that these days, she appeared one day a week in Sunshine Magistrates’ Court for what was essentially petrol money.

The cost to the public purse for her brilliant advocacy was about six dollars per client. One of the best tributes to her is on her Facebook page, where one of the police prosecutors praised her work. She played hard but fair, and the clerks of courts, police officers and magistrates all came to trust and esteem her.

In her novels, the police force is treated respectfully. The Victoria Police gave due recognition of this late in her life by awarding her an honorary police officer’s badge.

Kerry experienced tremendous difficulty articulating the word “no”; in consequence, she supported just about every charity going. She was also a singer, cook, embroiderer and seamstress who made most of her clothes. David Greagg

The Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries television series was filmed in and around Melbourne in 2011 and premiered on ABC1 on 24 February 2012. A second series was commissioned in August 2012 and filming began in February 2013 and aired starting 6 September 2013. A third series was commissioned in June 2014 and began airing on 8 May 2015.

A film that continues the story started in the television series was released in 2022: Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears.

On an interesting note, the TV series was redone by HBO Asia in 2020 as Miss S, set in Shanghai in the 1930's instead of Melbourne in the 1920's. The show was filmed in Mandarin, Miss Phryne Fisher was renamed as Su Wenli, Inspector Robinson was renamed as Luo Qiuheng, and Dorothy 'Dot' Williams was renamed as Xiao Tao Zi.

About Miss Fisher:

''She's nothing like me,'' said Greenwood, ''just the opposite. Phryne is a hero, she's fearless. Like most girls, I became very insecure when my body began to change in puberty. Everything altered, suddenly I got scared.''

Greenwood tackled her fear of high places by parachuting out of a plane. ''Now I can climb ladders,'' she says, ''but I am afraid of jumping out of planes!''

Within her Melbourne home, often in the dead of night, Greenwood wrote her books, seeing and talking to an imaginary Phryne Fisher when writing crime. ''Phryne sits on my desk, dictating,'' said Greenwood. ''She took over the books after the first two chapters. I have no control over her at all, she does what she wants. In this book I have just finished she holds up a ship.''

That pivotal tram trip in 1989 was a return journey from publishers Allen & Unwin who had summoned her after rejecting eight novels. ''Why don't you try crime fiction?'' they asked and Greenwood had nailed and named Phryne, based on her younger sister Janet, by the time she got home.

Her childhood was one of poverty and she occasionally had to scavenge for food in the pig-bins in Victoria Market. She often ate rabbit and cabbage because there was no other food available. In Cocaine Blues, she tells her maidservant and secretary Dot that during her youth, she "starved like Billy-o" and that her sister died of diphtheria and starvation.

In the First World War, the other male heirs to a British peerage were killed, and Phryne's father inherited the title. In the book Blood and Circuses, her father is described as an earl, but in the TV series her father is a baron. As his daughter, she was granted the style of "The Honorable Phryne Fisher" (which is the title for a daughter to a Baron or Viscount while as a daughter to an Earl she would instead be "Lady Phryne") and an enormous fortune. She has an aunt, Mrs. Prudence Stanley. Although she is described as having sisters and a brother, it is not clear how many sisters she has, but her younger sister died of diphtheria.

After completing school, Phryne ran away to France where she joined a French women's ambulance unit during the Great War, receiving a reward for bravery and a French war pension. She then worked as an artist's model in Montparnasse after the war.

In Flying Too High, Phryne Fisher decides to settle down in Melbourne, buying a house at 221B, The Esplanade, and moving in there with Dot Williams, her maid. She also engages Mr. and Mrs. Butler to act as her butler and housekeeper, respectively. Phryne confesses to her friend Bunji Ross that she bought the house because it was numbered 221 and that she added 'B' in an obvious reference to the home of Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street.

Through the course of the books, Phryne collects a personal maid, Dot; two adoptive daughters, Ruth and Jane (whom she rescued from slavery); a cat, Ember; a dog, Molly; and two loyal servants, the Butlers. She also has relationships with a string of lovers, most notably Lin Chung, a wealthy Chinese man (whom she rescues in the city one evening). Lin is the only lover with whom she maintains a relationship for more than a few books and even goes so far as to make a deal with his autocratic and overbearing grandmother that after he is married, she (Phryne) be allowed to continue a relationship with him.

Phryne can shoot and often carries, and uses, a lady's handgun in her purse. She is frequently described as being possessed of great courage and fearlessness, and personally admits to having very few actual fears (one of them being head-lice, which she abhors). She rarely cries, noting in Cocaine Blues that the last time she had done so was over a book of poetry by Wilfred Owen, after being sickened by the deaths in World War I.

Phryne is a skilled and experienced pilot, and in Flying Too High, performs a number of dangerous and skillful flying maneuvers in a Gipsy Moth plane in response to a flying instructor's doubts about her skills. In addition to planes, Phryne is a skilled, if somewhat reckless driver, and drives a red Hispano-Suiza, one of her prized possessions.

She is fond of dancing and has learned to dance the tango from 'the most expensive gigolo on the Rue de Chat-qui-Peche' in Paris. She speaks French fluently, with a Parisian accent and peppered with 'indelicate apache idioms'.

Phryne is described as being fond of the luxuries her position and wealth afford her, while always being conscious of her impoverished origins. She tells the Princess de Grasse in Cocaine Blues that "there is nothing like being really poor to make you relish being really wealthy." She often carries cash on her person, reasoning that she is unused enough to wealth to want the security of having readily available funds. She is generous with her money, and tips well.

Phryne is frequently described as dressing in high fashion and her clothes are often described in great and elaborate detail. She occasionally dresses in trousers and men's shirts. Phryne also enjoys good food. She is 'devoted' to lobster mayonnaise with cucumbers, in particular. Despite her numerous relationships and conduct that some parts of society might find shocking, Phryne describes herself as being immune to blackmail, showing no alarm, for instance, when Bobby Matthews, a thief she had once caught, threatens to tell all of Melthat she had once visited an expensive gigolo in Paris.

Although Phryne has had several relationships with men, she is described as being disinclined to settle down and marry. She is described in her books as using a diaphragm sold by Dr. Marie Stopes to avoid unwanted pregnancies. She is described as being heterosexual, and often politely rebuffs advances from women who are attracted to her.

Phryne once describes herself as having 'not the faintest spurt of maternity' and demonstrates a disinclination towards young children.

A note on the cultural conflict in “Deadweight”

This episode features the Derrimuts, an aboriginal family. Australia’s treatment of its aboriginal population deserves greater attention, but here is a very brief explanation from the Australian Museum, and I encourage you to read the longer article on the website.

“The Stolen Generation refers to the countless number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families under government policy and direction. …It is estimated that during the active period of the policy, between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 Indigenous children were removed from their families and communities.

The removal of Indigenous children was rationalized by various governments by claiming that it was for their protection and would save them from a life of neglect. A further justification used by the government of the day was that it was believed that “Pure Blood” Aboriginal people would die out and that the “Mixed Blood” children would be able to assimilate into society much easier, this being based on the premise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were racially inferior to people with Caucasian background.”

Be sure to read the longer website provided by the Australian Museum.

The short version of the plot:

The gaiety of St. Kilda's famous Esplanade is marred by the violence of gang warfare and the police who struggle to control it. When a gang leader is found dead outside a travelling boxing tent, Phryne's investigation leads her into the dangerous but thrilling world of fight rigging and tribal payback. As Constable Hugh Collins becomes emotionally embroiled, Phryne digs further to protect him and finds the most formidable fighters are outside the ring...

The issue turns out to be more than just one brawl. There was a melee a week prior, where an officer, Constable Fry, was stabbed and died. Collins was there, and says it would have gone nowhere had the Woolpackers' main rival, the Portsiders, not turned up. Flour bombs flew — the Woolpacker's second, Freckles Delahunty (Scott Smart), is a baker's apprentice — as Tom Derrimut (Mark Coles Smith), the leader of the Portsiders, attempted to break things up. Fry chased a gang member down an alleyway and never came back out.

Fisher wonders if Bradley was a regular boxer, but Arthur Biggs (Brett Swain), who runs the Troupe, says he's never seen him. His wife, called Mrs. Arthur (Glenda Linscott), concurs.  Fisher follows her out to her laundry pile in hopes of more information. But like Collins, she suspects this was police retaliation for the death of Fry. But the Portsiders also lost a member the night Fry was stabbed, an Aboriginal teen beaten and left at the steps of the local hospital. (The Woolpackers are whites only.) Phryne takes herself down to Collins' gym, Dot in tow, to see the half-naked sights and ask a few questions.

Collins is sympathetic towards these fatherless kids. (His father died in an accident trying to break up a fight, where he was knocked back and cracked his head on the gutter.) He's working with Tom when they arrive, but within a moment of Fisher introducing herself, Freckles and his gang arrive accusing Tom of killing Kevin as Portsider revenge. Tom insists he was out, and Kevin came after him for no reason. But Collins brings him in to give a statement, where he points the finger at the Tenners.

Fisher and Dot head back to the carnival to ask questions, while Jack is also on site. He's interviewing Giorgos the Greek (Chris Asimos), who found Kevin's body. While they chat, Fisher overhears Biggs threatening Tom's mother, Cora (Rachael Maza), Tom better keep his mouth shut. Phryne also finds the murder weapon, tossed on top of a tent. But before she can get her hands on it, Giorgos pulls her down and offers her tickets to tomorrow's show. Seeing Cora getting away, she points Jack towards the murder weapon.

Fisher catches up as Cora and Tom are arguing. Tom protests that he wants out as Cora counters Freckles has taken over "demanding payment." Fisher pulls Cora over, citing Collins' concerns for Tom. Cora says Tom is a fine Bunurong man, and innocent. She's already lost her husband to the war, Welfare took her younger son as part of what will come to be known as the Stolen Generations. Fisher uses what she learned to ask Tom at Collins' gym why he's boxing for Biggs. Tom won't answer.

Dr. Mac detects signs of CRT in Kevin's brain. (Though of course, no one calls it that.) With this proof he boxed regularly, Jack goes back to Biggs, who admits Kevin and Tom boxed, but only as challengers against the Troup. Jack notes one of their Troupe is unaccounted for, the "Black Belter." Biggs says the kid was named Jimmy and insists he just disappeared one day, which upsets Mrs. Arthur. Dr. Mac notes that the Portsider body that showed up the night Fry was stabbed wasn't covered in flour, but washing powder, just like the stuff Mrs. Biggs uses.

Butler, Bert, and Cec pool their knowledge of boxing to come up with the working theory Biggs is fixing fights for betting odds, which also explains the bits of money left in Kevin's jacket. Fisher gives Bert and Cec pin money to go undercover betting. Upon arrival, Tom is being advertised at "The Black Belter." Dot notices a boy pickpocketing, who tries to give the cash to Tom as Fisher then realizes the picture of the dead "Portsider" is the same face on the "Black Belter" poster. When she and Jack go to ask Biggs about it, Mrs. Arthur is attacking her husband for redoing the banner for "painting over my Jimmy." Biggs admits Jimmy was beaten near to death by Kevin in the ring. The washing powder was to hide where the injuries came from.

The knife used on Kevin turns out to be the same one in the Fry stabbing. Jack says it's a German bayonet from the war, and Fisher notes it has a possum carved on it. Tom's father's name was Wallet, which means "possum" in Yolŋu. Collins confirms that Tom referred to his late father as "Possum Derrimut." Collins tracks Tom to the boxing ring, about to fight a Woolpacker challenger. Bert and Cec see Freckles filling the gloves with lead. Mrs. Arthur is hysterical Tom will be killed, and Fisher demands the fight be stooped. Collins finally jumps in, saying he'll finish instead, and knocks the challenger. But before they can take Tom away, the boy runs up, demanding to confess.

He's Dan Derrimut, Cora's younger son, who ran away and came back to his family. He was at the brawl; it was him Fry chased down the alley as an easy target. Tom jumped in, and Dan picked up the knife just as the cop stumbled backward into it. His death was an accident. Kevin stumbled in after it happened and assumed Dan did it on purpose, that's why he was blackmailing Cora. But the Derrimuts didn't kill Kevin. When Mrs. Arthur saw Cora pull the knife on him, she jumped it and did it herself, as revenge for Jimmy.

There you have it: tracing back we see the more complicated sub-plots that lead to the murders in “Deadweight.” Greenwood doesn’t shy away from challenging topics like race and culture clash, as well as Australia’s history of repressing its indigenous population.

Let’s also contrast our “spinster” heroines.  Quite a difference from Miss Marple, wouldn’t you agree?

We will miss you, Kerry Greenwood!

Kerry Greenwood. (2023). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Greenwood

Money, L. (2012). Fearless Phryne Takes on the Small Screen. Retrieved from https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/fearless-phryne-takes-on-the-small-screen-20120401-1w6fe.html

Phrynefisher.com. (2023). Retrieved from http://phrynefisher.com/Kerrygreenwood.html

Phryne Fisher Wikiwand. (2023). Retrieved from https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Phryne_Fisher