Customer Reviews

Murder on the Ballarat Train (A Phryne Fisher Mystery)

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3 star:		(1)
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In the further adventures of Phryne Fisher, she is travelling by train to Ballarat in 1920's Australia, but her journey is rudely interrupted by a cloud of chloroform. She helps a girl with amnesia and a woman whose mother died on the train trip. Go Phryne !!

Phryne Fisher and her companion Dot are on the Ballarat Train. Phryne awakens realizing the first class car is filled with chloroform fumes. She opens the windows, saves the passengers but realizes that the quarrelsome mother of one of the passengers is missing. The mother's body is found badly broken and Phryne agrees to find the killer. Additional, Phryne rescues a young girl who has lost her memory.

I've said it before, but Phryne is who I'd like to be when I grow up; beautiful, smart, tough, independent, fashionable, wealthy but mindful of her poor beginnings and willing to help those who truly are in need. She has a wonderful, ever growing, cast of supporting characters who are diverse and interesting in their own right. This was not the strongest book in the series, but I do love the series overall. These are slightly over the top, just plain fun books.

in the third of the series, phyrne solves a murder, rescues two children and a cat, and proves once again that she is the most admirable fictional character in any genre. of course, any fan of golden age mysteries will be entertained by references and hallowed plots (which ms. greenwood makes completely her own).

the writing is not merely grammatical (a major plus after too many american mysteries apparently written by authors new to the language), it is funny, sarcastic in the inimitable aussie style, revealing, wonderfully descriptive, in all ways entertaining. occassionally enlightening. the plot, as usual, has lovely twists and red herrings.

i have come to think of her in the same terms as i think of patrick o'brian--a superlative writer with a secure grasp on her time period and an excellent, even uncanny, insight.

and, of course, the food, drinks, fashions and phyrne's pets are always fun.

"Murder on the Ballarat Train" hearkens back to the English Golden Age of Mysteries, where amateur detectives work hand in glove with obsequious police officers, the servants tip their caps and serve tea and where college boys are not louts and college girls are not sluts. Golden, in this book, if you overlook the stomping of a corpse, the rape and sexual enslavement of girls and the detective's requited lust for college boys.

Weighing in at a mere 150 pages, this 1991 Australian vintage, imported and published last year by Poisoned Pen Press, is set in the late 1920s and features the Honorable Phryne (pronounced Fry-knee) Fisher. This Carrie Bradshaw of Melbourne is slim, successful and acerbic, especially on the subject of unruly children. She carries herself like a duchess, except when she's trolling bawdy houses to hunt for missing girls, or mingling with the members of the college rowing squad in her pursuit of a murderer. Except for her unabashed admiration for the male gender, there's little else that distinguishes her, but she's surrounded by enough interesting characters that it doesn't matter.

The mystery centers around a verbally abusive harridan who is tossed from a train after her daughter's been gassed with chloroform. Miss Fisher is in the same car (and nearly overcome herself), but effects a rescue and is drawn into the investigation. But there's not much of an investigation, and the case quickly gets shunted aside for Miss Fisher to deal with an abandoned child who she takes into her home. This leads elsewhere for awhile and to the aforesaid collegians, until it's all brought together near the end.

There's some grim material about white slavery, and the story threatens to fall apart when the old tropes that were moldy in that era reappear, and especially when Miss Fisher draws a conclusion out of thin air, but by that time you're either rolling with Miss Fisher and her crew -- enjoying a time when motoring is still new, murders were few and notorious and the college boys wonder if they should admit girls into their glee club so they could sing the Brahms "Liebeslieder" -- or you've already set it aside to return to Christie or Sayers or Marsh.

There just wasn't any depth to this book. Not that I was expecting War and Peace, mind you, but I was certainly expecting more than what I got. Based on very little evidence AT ALL and with every scintella of evidence pointing directly at only one suspect (and glaringly obviously so) we know who the murderer is almost upon the first mention of him in the book. Characters are physically well-described, however their personalities are flat and one-dimensional. No one in the book dares question or challenge the main character - all are enamored of her including any and all law enforcement types. Her romance with a young man she has just met is not germaine to the story line and yet it fills up page after page after page. Sorry, it's just not a good story.

I started reading the Phryne Fisher series when a friend gave me the first title recently and I haven't been able to stop! This is yet another creative and entertaining installment in the series. What a blast to read about a heroine who is earthy, intelligent, independent, open-minded and successful - all in the 1920's!

The third installment of the Phryne Fisher series 'Murder on the Ballarat Train' begins quite literally, with a bang, when Phryne decides to leave Melbourne with her trusty and reliable companion Dot, and travels by train leaving behind her beautiful, fast Hispano-Suiza. Some sinister plot is afoot and Phryne has to shoot out the window of a train compartment to save the passengers. Thus begins the highly amusing investigation into an old lady's murder and a child's background suffering from amnesia and now given into Phryne's care. As the previous books, the story is vastly entertaining and Phryne solves the cases with her usual flair and common sense. The cast of secondary characters is growing and they are immensely likable, as is the heroine. I would definitely recommend reading the series in their publishing order as each of the characters becomes more rounded and a full picture begins to build.

In Australia, the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher is on the train to Ballaret to visit some cousins when she wakes up in her compartment to the smell of chloroform. She starts opening the window reviving herself and her maid Dot. They open the windows in the other three compartments in first class. One elderly woman, Mrs. Henderson is missing until her body is found thirty feet from the track.

Her daughter Eunice hires Phryrne to find out who killed her mother. Another mystery on the train presents itself in the form of a young child suffering from amnesia. Phryrne calls her Jane and takes her home with her and has her examined by her doctor who tells her the child was sexually molested. Phryrne is determined to find out who did this to the child and who killed Mrs. Henderson; because of her reputation, she has the full support of the Melbourne police who are in awe of the indomitable Miss Fisher.

In chronological order, the third Phryne Fisher mystery is as exciting as the rest of the books in this fabulous series. Taking place inin Australia in the 1920's where women are gaining more freedom, the heroine is in the forefront of the equality under the law movement. She is independent, stubborn and generous to those she cares about. The killer hides in plane sight and for a time, much to Phryrne's chagrin, fools the intrepid heroine.

Harriet Klausner

Love this series. It's always something new but Phyrne and her 'gang' are always reliable. Kerry Greenwod captures the spirit of this character and you become submersed in the caper.

I was a bit unsure about this series based on some of the reviews, but have now quite greedily read six of them already, and am waiting for my shipment of the next one. The characters are fun and engaging, and despite the length, the stories never feel too short or cur-off. Phryne is one of my favourite characters in mystery fiction, and I wish I knew her! Kerry Greenwood really manages to build up the late 20s atmosphere in Melbourne and gives readers a great and detailed idea of what it may have been like living at that time in such a (for me at least) far-away place. I highly recommend this series to fans of lighter historical fiction and mystery.