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Blood and Circuses: A Phryne Fisher Mystery    by Kerry Greenwood Amazon.com order for
Blood and Circuses
by Kerry Greenwood
Order:  USA  Can
Poisoned Pen, 2007 (1994)
Hardcover
* *   Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth

With a tip on how to pronounce her given name (Fry-NEE), Phryne Fisher explodes back on the scene as a circus bareback rider. She had to learn the knack so she could hang around a circus to discover who was sabotaging the business.

A man/woman (an hermaphrodite) found dead in a locked room in a boarding house was also a member of that circus. Falls have been taken, animals have died, there have been various and sundry small happenings; all apparently designed to hamper the financial success of the circus and the carnie that traveled with it.

Phryne is a woman before her time in the late 1920s in Melbourne, Australia. Taking her sexual pleasures where she finds them, she has a genuine regard and lust for the well-developed male. And she's not afraid to follow her instincts. She has a curious mind and seems to have mystery follow her. She has surrounded herself with a unique cast of characters who are as unusual as she is, but without her wealth.

First published in 1994, Blood and Circuses is the eleventh of Kerry Greenwood's delightful series to be reprinted in the United States. It's a quick and engaging read, a fun book that will inspire a period of musing and longing for what could have been and wasn't in the reader's own life.

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