The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions by Kerry Greenwood (2021) 252 pages
For those who don't know the character Phryne Fisher, she's a single, wealthy woman in Melbourne, Australia who is very proper, yet extraordinarily ready to break customs. She's also a private detective, with a unique relationship with Jack Robinson, a chief investigator of the police. The stories take place in the late 1920s.
In Murder in Williamstown, multiple mysteries occur. One involves Phryne's Chinese lover, Lin Chung, and includes his wife's sister, who has gone missing. Another involves financial shenanigans at a school for the blind, and one involves threatening letters that have arrived in Phryne's mailbox. Phryne works with Jack Robinson to figure out the first case, and Phryne's three adopted children are instrumental in solving the second two of the mysteries. Phyrne's employee Dot helps out, too, although sometimes reluctantly.
The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions is a collection of 17 short stories. This format works well; as author Kerry Greenwood indicates in her forward, it gives her a chance to try out new characters. Greenwood's forward also gets into the origin of Phryne's character. She characterizes Phryne as a James Bond type character "with better clothes and fewer gadgets." My own opinion is that the Phryne Fisher mysteries are just plain fun reading, even for those of us who may be more like Dot than like Phryne.
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