Description

"While memories of the Titanic linger among the ship's passengers, readers are treated to descriptions of sumptuous meals and snippets of Maori lore, along with a tantalizing mystery. Those who long to revel in a glamorous if imperfect past will be satisfied." —Publishers Weekly

The nice men at P&O are worried. A succession of jewelry thefts from the first-class passengers is hardly the best advertisement for their cruises. Especially when it is likely that a passenger is the thief.

Phryne Fisher, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, cupid's bow lips, and sense of the ends justifying the means, is just the person to mingle seamlessly with the upper classes and take on a case of theft on the high seas—or at least on the S.S. Hinemoa—on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. She is carrying the Great Queen of Sapphires, the Maharani, as bait.

There are shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous swains, mickey finns, jazz musicians, blackmail, and attempted murder, all before the thieves find out—as have countless love-smitten men before them—that where the glamorous and intelligent Phryne is concerned, resistance is futile.

About the Author

Kerry Greenwood was born in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray and after wandering far and wide, she returned to live there. She has degrees in English and Law from Melbourne University and was admitted to the legal profession on the 1st April 1982, a day which she finds both soothing and significant. Kerry has written three series, a number of plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D’Arcy, is an award-winning children’s writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. The Phryne Fisher series (pronounced Fry-knee, to rhyme with briny) began in 1989 with Cocaine Blues which was a great success. Kerry has written twenty books in this series with no sign yet of Miss Fisher hanging up her pearl-handled pistol. Kerry says that as long as people want to read them, she can keep writing them. In 2003 Kerry won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Association.