Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood

Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood

From the author of the bestselling Phryne Fisher Series comes Blood and Circuses, the next historical mystery featuring an unstoppable, elegant amateur sleuth. Can Miss Fisher uncover the truth without losing her life?

Phryne Fisher is bored. Life appears to be too easy, too perfect. Her household is ordered, her love life is pleasant, the weather is fine. And then a man from her past arrives at the door. It is Alan Lee from the carnival. Alan and his friends want her to investigate strange happenings at Farrells Circus, where animals have been poisoned and ropes sabotaged. Mr. Christopher has been found with his throat cut in Mrs. Witherspoon's irreproachable boarding house and Miss Parkes, an ex-performer, is charged with his murder.

Phryne must go undercover deeper than ever to solve the circus malaise. She must abandon her name, her title, her protection, her comfort, even her clothes. She must fall off a horse twice a day until she can stay on. She must sleep in a girls' tent and dine on mutton stew. She must find some allies--and maybe a circus romance. Meanwhile, in Melbourne, the young and fresh-faced policeman Tommy Harris has to solve his own mysteries with the help of the foul-spoken harridan Lizard Elsie, or Miss Parkes will certainly hang. Can Phryne take on this great circus mystery before disaster strikes?

Kerry Greenwood has written almost 40 novels and six nonfiction works. Greenwood has garnered numerous awards, including the Crime Writers' Association of Australia's Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award. She works for the Legal Aid Commission as an advocate in Magistrates' Courts when she is not writing. She isn't married, doesn't have any children, and lives with a Wizard.