Thu Apr 10

Wit, charm and heart: novelist Kerry Greenwood, creator of Phryne Fisher, was a true original

Written by Sue Turnbull, Senior Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong

There is a moment in the film Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears when the camera pans around the ballroom to discover Phryne Fisher’s creator Kerry Greenwood and her partner David Greagg seated at a dinner table, beaming and elegant in their finest 1920s evening wear.

Also appearing in this scene are many of the Phryne Fisher fans who helped bring the movie to the screen when producers Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox asked for help. The initial crowdfunding target of A$250,000 was reached within 48 hours. A day later the total had risen to $400,000, making this the most successful crowdfunding campaign for an Australian film at the time.

Watching Miss Fisher on film at the Sun Theatre in Yarraville in 2020, at an event organised by Sisters in Crime Australia, seated next to Kerry and surrounded by her fans, was an experience to remember. When we got to the ballroom scene, everyone cheered. Kerry was clearly thrilled.

A great legacy

Kerry died last week after suffering ill health for a number of years. The tributes are beginning to flow in from across the world from her many fans and followers. She has left us a great legacy in the form of her many books and our memories of the author herself. She was as witty, colourful and charming as her heroine, Miss Phryne Fisher.

Phryne was not Kerry’s only fictional creation, although she was her first significant success and will probably continue to be her most revered and influential character. She also wrote the Corinna Chapman series about a Melbourne-based baker, as well as many stand-alone novels in a variety of genres. She was astonishingly prolific.

In 1989, I had the pleasure of meeting with Kerry shortly after the publication of Cocaine Blues, the first in what would come to be the Phryne Fisher series. I well remember suggesting that it would make a great period crime drama.

That would not come about until 2012, after Eagger and Cox acquired the rights and produced three seasons for the ABC. The show was later acquired by the streamers, found a new international audience, and spawned a Chinese adaptation, Miss S.

Kerry and I first met in Mietta’s restaurant, just off Collins Street in Melbourne, where we sat at a small table in an elegant art deco bar, drinking gin and smoking up a storm. She recounted, in her inimitable way, how she had been trying to write a novel about highwaymen, but had been persuaded by her then publishers, Hilary McPhee and Diana Gribble, to write something different. She had at some point written a thesis about the strikes on the Melbourne wharfs in 1928 and 1929, and had read every newspaper she could find, so she already had the perfect historical backdrop for a crime novel set in the period. The idea for Miss Fisher came to her on the tram going home. When it was later suggested that her charming female action hero might bear some similarity to the Saint or James Bond, Kerry trenchantly responded with the comment that Phryne “had fewer product endorsements and a better class of lovers”. This was indeed true. Kerry was always a stylish writer and Cocaine Blues opens with brief first paragraph that does not waste time in getting the story moving: The glass in the French window shattered. The guests screamed. Over the general exclamation could be heard the shrill shriek of Madame St Clair, wife of the ambassador ‘Ciel! Mes Bijoux!’ It was with great glee that Kerry informed me that Madame St Clair’s exclamation was a direct steal from The Adventures of Tintin, as created by the Belgian comic artist Hergé. When I admitted to also loving Tintin, at our next meeting Kerry presented me with her French edition of Les Bijoux de La Castafiore (The Castafiore Emerald), in which the line does indeed appear. I treasure it still. The anecdote reveals not only the eclectic range of Kerry’s sources (and the fact that she read French and was something of a polymath), but also her generosity. A wealth of entertainment Phryne might well be Kerry’s alter ego, in her care for the waifs and strays that she encounters, her concern for the poor and downtrodden, and in her passionate pursuit of justice, not forgetting that Kerry was a barrister who worked full-time as a criminal defence lawyer for Legal Aid. When Phryne Fisher first appeared in 1989, there were relatively few Australian crime writers being published, and even fewer women. The crime writing scene now is very different. Carmel Shute from the Australian chapter of Sisters in Crime informed me that over 150 crime fiction and true crime books by women will be published in Australia in 2025. This has to be a record. It is testimony to the increasing popularity of a literary form which women have embraced as a way to tell the stories that matter to them. Quite a few of those books sit within what has often been characterised as the “cosy” genre: a subgenre of crime fiction to which Kerry’s crime fiction certainly belongs. Until recently, cosy crime has tended to be underrated, compared to the kind of “gritty” crime fiction that wins accolades. This has obscured the achievement of crime fiction such as Kerry’s, in which historical and contemporary social issues are reflected back to us in ways that give us pause, even as they are presented in a form designed to entertain. This is Kerry’s legacy: a wealth of entertainment with a heart. Her novels are provocations to care about social justice. She was a true original, a great friend, and a valued mentor. She will be much missed, even as her creativity will continue to inspire. Correction: an earlier version of this article mistakenly stated that the Sisters in Crime Australia screening was in 2022.

Authors: Sue Turnbull, Senior Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong

Wit, charm and heart: novelist Kerry Greenwood, creator of Phryne Fisher, was a true original

A great legacy

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