AustLit

Show notes

• Kerry is best known for her Phryne Fisher The first, Cocaine Blues, was published in 1989 and twentieth, Murder and Mendelssohn, published in 2013.
• Kerry was involved in the development of the TV show, Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries, which ran from 2012 until 2015. She approved the casting of Essie Davis as Phryne Fisher.
• She lives in Footscray Melbourne and is a fan of the Western Bulldogs AFL team. When we recorded this interview, the Bulldogs had just won the Grand Final.
• Kerry read R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame as a child.
• Kerry was never a fan of Russian literature (she finds it too depressing), or anything by Jane Austen.

But she does love all things Dr Who and Terry Pratchett.

• In terms of crime fiction, she reads Agatha Christie’s Poirot series, Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, and Leslie Charteris’ The Saint.
• Despite preferring happy stories, Kerry does read the Ancient Greeks, including Herodotus and Thucydides. The ‘Grecian books’ Kerry refers to are her Delphic Women Series.
• Kerry thinks all writers in Australia must be good because the market is so tough, but she does particularly enjoy Angela Savage.