Blood and Circuses (1994)

CIRCUS. Yes. ( )

This book was too much about the circus ick and less about the people I have gotten to know. Dot was barely mentioned & nothing about her adopted daughters or Ces & mate. ( )

What fun. A menage a trios. ( )

While Greenwood could still use a more stringent editor (point of view changes randomly mid-scene; we're told that certain relationships are long-established and important without ever seeing that), Blood and Circuses is perhaps an improvement on the earlier books in the series. The mystery isn't quite so melodramatic and easy to figure it out, though that's not to say that Greenwood doesn't pack in everything bar the kitchen sink into this novel—pools of blood dripping into teacups! gang warfare! profanity spewing alcoholics! biscuit-eating bears! sex with clowns! Something for all tastes. I did also greatly like that this was an installment in which Phryne struggled with loneliness, fear, and being out of her depth—she didn't automatically have the skills and knowledge to fit in when she went undercover, and that felt refreshingly realistic.

There are even characters, sympathetically dealt with, one of whom is intersex and another who is perhaps transgender/gender dysphoric/lesbian—that even the characters themselves are not necessarily certain of how they identify is probably realistic to Australia of the 1920s, though there were other aspects of their depiction that made me uneasy. There are also non-graphic depictions of attempted sexual assault here which some may wish to avoid. ( )

This is the sixth Phryne (Fry-knee) Fisher book, set in post-WW I Melbourne.

When she is asked to investigate a suspicious run of bad luck at Farrel's travelling circus, Phryne goes undercover and joins the circus. This ties into the same case that Inspector call-me-Jack-everyone-does Robinson is working on, which involves a gang war threatening to break out on the streets of Melbourne. Phryne, who always finds a different paramour in each book, this time finds two; they help her fit into circus life, since her high society veneer has to be peeled off for the time being and her remembered childhood poverty isn't very useful, either.

I quite like this series (partly, I must admit, for the cover art) for the period atmosphere and different views of early 20th century Australian life that Ms Greenwood conveys. Of course, not knowing anything about 1930s Melbourne, I can't tell how accurate it is, but she does seem to put some research into the particular aspect of life she focuses on in each book (in this case, circuses and their social hierarchy). This book is nicely put together, as ever, with a highly likeable supporting cast, but it wasn't a page turner for me; there were a few too many naked bodies about the place, which got in the way of the story somewhat. ( )