Ruddy Gore: 08/22/18

Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood is the seventh of the Phryne Fisher mysteries. The book is centered around a the Melbourne performance of Ruddigore, where there is, of course a murder. The playhouse appears to be cursed and bad things keep happening — beyond the murder. Phryne decides to step in and investigate.

The mystery involving the play is pretty good. It's tied up with long forgotten scandals and bad feelings left to fester. By itself, it's a good, albeit easy to solve, mystery.

But there's a separate, tangential plot involving Phryne coming to the rescue of two Chinese immigrants: Lin Chung and his grandmother. I get the Phryne can kick ass while looking like the bees knees but I sincerely doubt that anyone would mistake her for a deity. To have these two mistake her for one just opens up one in a long string of Chinese stereotypes that aren't made better by Phryne bedding Lin. It's not true love. It's not even just casual sex. It's fetishizing the other.

Two stars

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