AustLit logo

AustLit

image of person or book cover 2173283517046022138.jpg
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Blood and Circuses single work   novel   crime   mystery  
Is part of Phryne Fisher Mysteries Kerry Greenwood , 1989- series - author novel (number 6 in series)
Issue Details: First known date: 1994... 1994 Blood and Circuses
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Phryne Fisher is bored. So when she is asked to investigate some strange goings-on in Farrell's Circus and Wild Beast Show, her curiosity gets the better of her. Stripped of her identity, wealth and privileges, Phryne takes a job as a trick horse-rider...But what connects the circus with the particularly nasty murder in Mrs Witherspoon's house for paying gentlefolk?...Piecing together fragments from the seedy underworld of twenties Firtzroy and the eccentric life under the big top, Phryne proves her mettle yet again, aided only by her wits, an oddly attractive clown, and a stout and helpful bear.' (Source: back cover, 1994 edition)

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Blood and Circuses Shelley Birse , ( dir. Emma Freeman ) Melbourne : Every Cloud Productions , 2012 5985030 2012 single work film/TV crime

'The circus is in town and when one of the sideshow acts is murdered, Phryne poses as a magician's assistant to investigate.

'The heady atmosphere of the carnival takes Phryne on a bittersweet trip down memory lane — to the days when she and her sister, Janey, would sneak into the big top, until one night Janey disappeared.

'Her pain is reignited when she discovers that Murdoch Foyle — the man accused of murdering her sister — was the mastermind behind an elaborate prison escape plan. Any chance of discovering the truth about her sister's fate is dashed though, when she learns that Foyle has died and been cremated.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 24/5/2013)

Notes

  • Dedication: For John Greenwood, my dear brother.
  • Epigraph: 'People must be amused, Squire...they can't always be a-working, nor yet they can't always be a-learning. Make the best of us, not the worst.' Hard Times, Charles Dickens

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: McPhee Gribble , 1994 .
      image of person or book cover 2173283517046022138.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 289p.
      Note/s:
      • Phryne Fisher's freakiest murder mystery (appears on cover).
      ISBN: 0869143417 (pbk)
    • Crows Nest, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 2005 .
      person or book cover
      Courtesy of Allen & Unwin
      Extent: 289p.
      Note/s:
      • Published February 2005
      ISBN: 9781741145540, 1741145546
    • Scottsdale, Arizona,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Poisoned Pen Press ,       2006 .
      image of person or book cover 7526775249872397517.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 208p.
      Edition info: 1st US ed.
      ISBN: 1590582357, 9781590582350
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Honourable Phryne Fisher Returns Kerry Greenwood , Sydney : Allen and Unwin , 2012 Z1908291 2012 selected work novel 'Phryne Fisher, the 1920s most elegant and irrepressible sleuth, returns in her second three adventures - bound together in one great value volume.'
    Source: Publisher's website
         Sydney : Allen and Unwin , 2012
    • Crows Nest, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Allen and Unwin , 2012 .
      person or book cover
      Courtesy of Allen & Unwin
      Extent: 264p.
      Note/s:
      • On cover: 'As seen on ABC1.'
      ISBN: 9781742379661
    • Scottsdale, Arizona,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Poisoned Pen Press ,       2017 .
      image of person or book cover 6420689548078336672.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 220p.
      Note/s:
      • Published March 7, 2017
      ISBN: 9781464207624
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Other Formats

  • Dyslexic edition.
  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.
  • Large print.
Find library holdings on Trove

Works about this Work

Monster Marks : Sliding Significations of the Grotesque in Popular Fiction Sylvia Kelso , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: Sirius , March no. 11 1996; (p. 12-15) The majority of authors and works covered in this article are American and English.
[Review] Blood and Circuses Stuart Coupe , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Mean Streets : A Quarterly Journal of Crime, Mystery and Detection , May no. 11 1994; (p. 48-50)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
Darn Good John Hanrahan , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 2 April 1994; (p. 8)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel ; Small Ecstasies Moya Costello , 1994 selected work short story poetry prose
No Easy Marks for Warshawski Stuart Coupe , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26 February 1994; (p. 10A)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
Murder No More Odd than Those Before Katharine England , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 26 February 1994; (p. 23)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
Meat-Cleaver Memoirs Graeme Blundell , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 12-13 March 1994; (p. rev 7)
— Review of Sharkbait : A Syd Fish Mystery Susan Geason , 1993 single work novel ; Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel ; Killing Women : Rewriting Detective Fiction 1993 anthology criticism biography
Guilt Edge J. R. Carroll , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 161 1994; (p. 62-63)
— Review of Arms for Adonis Charlotte Jay , 1960 single work novel ; Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
Murder No More Odd than Those Before Katharine England , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 26 February 1994; (p. 23)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
No Easy Marks for Warshawski Stuart Coupe , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26 February 1994; (p. 10A)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel
Darn Good John Hanrahan , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 2 April 1994; (p. 8)
— Review of Blood and Circuses Kerry Greenwood , 1994 single work novel ; Small Ecstasies Moya Costello , 1994 selected work short story poetry prose
Monster Marks : Sliding Significations of the Grotesque in Popular Fiction Sylvia Kelso , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: Sirius , March no. 11 1996; (p. 12-15) The majority of authors and works covered in this article are American and English.
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (7)
Last amended 2 Jul 2020 15:21:01
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Melbourne, Victoria,
  • 1920s
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X