Kerry Greenwood

Name: Cocaine Blues
Author: Kerry Greenwood

Australian · 1 series

Historical mystery Female detective International setting

By The Editorial Team · Last reviewed April 2026

Who is Kerry Greenwood?

Kerry Greenwood was born in Melbourne in 1954, and if you read Phryne Fisher carefully enough you can feel that. Not in any autobiographical sense, but in the way the streets and the cafes and the social geography of 1920s Melbourne land with the specificity of someone who grew up knowing the city from the inside. She studied law at the University of Melbourne, was called to the bar, and has worked as a barrister, a director of community theatre, a costume designer, and — perhaps inevitably — a baker. The range is not incidental. Phryne comes from that.

The series begins in 1928, the year a wealthy, glamorous, entirely self-determined woman arrives back in Melbourne from London and starts solving murders. The Honourable Phryne Fisher is everything Maisie Dobbs is not: flamboyant, hedonistic, unapologetic. Where Maisie carries her trauma quietly, Phryne wears hers as a kind of ammunition. She grew up poor in Melbourne before a distant relative died and left her a fortune. She went to London, became polished and brilliant, and returned home precisely because she felt like it.

“I am not accustomed to being told what to do. I find it doesn’t suit me.”

Greenwood published the first Phryne Fisher novel, Cocaine Blues, in 1989. Twenty-one books followed over the next three decades. The series became one of the best-loved in Australian crime fiction and, in 2012, became the basis for the television drama Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, starring Essie Davis. The show ran for three series on ABC Australia and found a global audience on Netflix and Acorn. A film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, followed in 2020. The adaptation is faithful in spirit, if not always in plot: it kept what matters most, which is Phryne herself.

Beyond Phryne, Greenwood has written the Corinna Chapman series, set in contemporary Melbourne around a baker-turned-reluctant-detective, and several standalone novels. The Phryne books remain her monument.

Quick facts

Debut: Cocaine Blues (1989), launching the Phryne Fisher series
Series span: 21 novels, set 1928–1929
Adapted for television: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (ABC, 2012–2015)
Also writes: Corinna Chapman series (contemporary Melbourne)
Qualifications: Barrister, community theatre director, baker

What order should I read Kerry Greenwood’s books?

Start with Phryne Fisher book one, Cocaine Blues, and read in publication order. The novels can be read independently but the recurring characters — Dot Williams, the Collins Street household, Inspector Jack Robinson — deepen with familiarity. Phryne also changes in subtle ways across the series, and those changes reward a reader who has been present from the beginning.

Phryne Fisher

1
Cocaine Blues (1989)
Phryne arrives in Melbourne and is promptly hired to investigate a young woman who has been poisoned by an illegal abortionist, setting the tone for everything that follows.
2
Flying Too High (1990)
An amateur aviator is accused of patricide, and Phryne takes to the skies — literally — to clear his name.
3
Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991)
Passengers are chloroformed one by one on the overnight train to Ballarat, and Phryne must identify the poisoner before she becomes the next target.
4
Death at Victoria Dock (1992)
A dying anarchist collapses at Phryne's feet on the docks, and she finds herself drawn into Melbourne's radical political underground.
5
The Green Mill Murder (1993)
A dancer is murdered mid-contest at the Green Mill ballroom, and Phryne investigates while pursuing her own pleasures in the jazz-soaked Melbourne night.
6
Blood and Circuses (1994)
Phryne goes undercover in a travelling circus to investigate threats against its performers and animals.
7
Ruddy Gore (1995)
A Gilbert and Sullivan production at the Princess Theatre is haunted by a malevolent ghost and a very real series of accidents and deaths.
8
Urn Burial (1996)
A weekend at a country house turns lethal when a guest is found dead in a limestone cave, and Phryne must unmask the killer before the house party ends.
9
Raisins and Almonds (1997)
A young man dies in a Jewish bookshop in Carlton and Phryne investigates, moving through Melbourne's Jewish immigrant community with the series' characteristic warmth.
10
Death Before Wicket (1999)
Phryne visits Sydney during the cricket season and finds murder lurking behind the genteel façade of university sport.
11
Away With the Fairies (2001)
A women's magazine editor is found dead, and Phryne investigates the world of 1920s women's publishing and the suffragette generation who made it.
12
Murder in Montparnasse (2002)
Veterans of Phryne's Paris bohemian years are being killed one by one, forcing her to return in memory to the world she left behind.
13
The Castlemaine Murders (2003)
Gold rush skeletons and present-day murders in Castlemaine link Chinese-Australian history to a killer operating in the contemporary goldfields town.
14
Queen of the Flowers (2004)
Phryne agrees to reign over a flower festival and finds herself investigating the disappearance of a young woman whose past is more tangled than her flower crown suggests.
15
Death by Water (2005)
Phryne boards a luxury liner for an ocean voyage and discovers that someone among the first-class passengers is a murderer with unfinished business.
16
Murder in the Dark (2006)
A New Year's house party descends into violence when guests begin to die during a midnight game, and Phryne must find the killer before dawn.
17
Murder on a Midsummer Night (2008)
The illegitimate heir to a fortune is found dead, and Phryne's investigation leads through Melbourne's Italian community and a family secret long kept buried.
18
Dead Man's Chest (2010)
Phryne housesits a Great Ocean Road cottage and finds the owners have vanished, the neighbors are peculiar, and someone is determined she should not ask questions.
19
Unnatural Habits (2012)
Pregnant girls are disappearing from a Magdalene laundry, a young journalist investigating the story goes missing, and Phryne goes to war with Melbourne's moral establishment.
20
Murder and Mendelssohn (2013)
A conductor is murdered during rehearsals for a choral festival, and Phryne investigates while a World War One codebreaker from her past reappears in her life.
21
Death in Daylesford (2021)
Phryne travels to the spa town of Daylesford and finds a health retreat hiding dark secrets about its patients and the treatments being administered in the name of cure.

If you enjoy Kerry Greenwood, try...

Jacqueline Winspear — Historical mysteries with strong female leads
Vaseem Khan — Period crime fiction with rich cultural settings