Murder on a Midsummer Night

By: Kerry Greenwood

Narrated by: Stephanie Daniel

Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

The fabulous Phryne - she of the Lulu bob, Cupid's Bow lips and a pearl-handled pistol in her garter - is back! The 1920s most elegant and irrepressible sleuth returns for her 17th adventure.

Melbourne, Australia, 1929. The year starts off for glamorous private investigator Phryne Fisher with a rather trying heat wave and more mysteries than you could prod a parasol at. Simultaneously investigating the apparent suicide death of a man on St Kilda beach and trying to find a lost, illegimate child who could be heir to a wealthy old woman's fortune, Phryne needs all her wits about her, particularly when she has to tangle with a group of thoroughly unpleasant Bright Young Things.

But Phryne Fisher is a force of nature, and takes in her elegant stride what might make others quail, including terrifying seances, ghosts, Kif smokers, the threat of human sacrifices, dubious spirit guides and maps to buried pirate treasure...

©2008 Kerry Greenwood (P)2008 Bolinda Publishing

one of my favorites in this series

series evokes period and Australia..characters keep evolving. love this series and recommend to start at beginning

A good story overall

I think the sexual content is unnecessary because the story is good without that. I love all of the period details.

All characters were fine except for:

The voice of Jack Robinson was too grouf. As it didn’t fit the character, who was a gentle man in his ways

Murder on a Midsummer Night

I love all of the Miss Fisher books I've listened to so far and they have yet to disappoint.

Great story; Great performance

Narrator is wonderful. She brings the characters & their spirit alive. A performance vs narration.

What a delight!

Any additional comments?

I took advantage of a sale to try one of the Phryne Fisher books. I am SO glad I did. Now I'm hooked. Reader was perfect, characters are delightful. I LOVE them.

This series is fun!

It is such a light and fun read. I enjoyed this as much as the first. I love the narrator. She is perfect.

Ghosts & Seances & Bribery & Illegitimacy Oh My!

First Phryne's sister Eliza, now happily partnered with Lady Alice and doing good works, particularly among the downtrodden women on the streets, brings Phryne a case. Augustine Manifold drowned, and his death has been declared a suicide, but his mother is sure he was murdered. She says he swam like a fish and didn't drink. Her son was her everything and the rather scary old woman is determined to get justice for him. Augustine was an enterprising self-educated man who recognized valuable items when he saw them and made a comfortable living buying one man's junk and selling it to the man whose treasure it was, but he may have been on the trail of a major find that would enable him buy his mother a house and live separately from her.

Phryne has another case as well. A lawyer. Mr. Adami, hesitates to settle Mrs. Bonnetti's estate because she specified in her will that the estate is to be divided among "all my children," without naming them. Phryne's review of the Mrs. Bonnetti's girlhood suggests an illegitimate child before her marriage to an older man from whom she inherited. Something else is also wrong in the estate besides ancient history: There's a butler who seems to take liberties, a grown up "child" who seems to be drugged all the time, and a family patriarch who doesn't seem to protect his siblings, particularly a woman married to a bully and wastrel. There's also a strong scent of blackmail and it also appears looting of the estate is ongoing. One of the children is now a nun, so Phryne starts her investigation there, because that progeny would have no pecuniary motive to inherit.

In the Manifold case, Pryne attends a frightening party from which she barely escapes. All of these people seem dangerous and one or more or the group may have combined to kill Manifold. It is the only time in all the books I've ever seen Phryne seem afraid. And, indeed, one man in the group subsequently shows up at Phryne's house begging for protection, fearing he'll be murdered.

Phryne's investigations lead her to some the likely father of the illegitimate child of Mrs. Bonnetti and two delightful characters who are old actors. The Bonnetti case triggers to a string of afternoon interruptions, with one visitor alternately threatening Phryne and trying to bribe her. After she settles that case, with MANY revelations, Phryne gets Lin Chung's "magical" (communication from beyond the grave) help to solve the mystery of Augustine Manifold's drowning death.

Excellent vocal range.

I feel like I just experienced a Melbourne summer and wish that I could have one of Mr. Butler's miraculous concoctions. Richly described and perfectly read.

Not one of her best!

I have read every Phryne Fisher book out there except this one and I hate to say it but this was a big disappointment. In a word, it was just dull. Way too much atmosphere and descriptions of sybaritic lifestyle and way too little action or suspense. I also have to say that I much prefer the televised versions of these books (the originals-not the “new” Miss Fisher). I think Greenwood missed the boat by not introducing the sexual tension between Phryne and Jack Robinson in her books as they did in the televised stories. In the books Jack comes across as very two dimensional and the delicious chemistry between them and their marvelously adversarial relationship just doesn’t exist. So none of the books are as good as the TV versions but this one wasn’t really worth even listening to.