Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood
“‘I wonder what I want to do?” Phryne asked of herself. ‘It has been quite interesting up until now, but I can’t dance and game my life away. I suppose I could try for the air race record in the new Avro – or join Miss May Cunliffe in the road-trials of the new Lagonda – or learn Abyssinian – or take to gin – or breed horses – I don’t know, it all seems very flat.
‘Well I shall try being a perfect Lady Detective in Melbourne – that ought to be difficult enough – and perhaps something will suggest itself. If not, I can still catch the ski season. It may prove amusing, after all.'”
Eager to escape the tedium of 1920s London Society (and desperate for something, anything, to do) the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher decides to take up the mantle of Lady Detective, a task that may prove more daunting than she thought.
Her first case, which was to simply investigate the strange bouts of ill health experienced by the daughter of a retired Colonel, soon embroils Phryne in a storm of crime and questionable doings involving drug-smuggling, attempted murder, Communist cabbies, a back-ally abortion ring, and the King of Snow the mysterious mastermind of the Melbourne drug trade.
It may indeed prove most amusing, after all.