Kerry Greenwood

In TAMAM SHUD: THE SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY, Kerry Greenwood has taken the opportunity to look back. At a case that continues to remain unsolved since the body of a man showed up on a beach in Adelaide in 1948. At the traces of the investigation that remain. At a much loved father. And finally, at some of her own crime fiction, written around the same case. This approach is undoubtedly going to make this book quite a polariser. It's obvious that some readers will love it, and some readers will loathe it. I suspect both of those camps are going to take up their position with comparable passion.

Obviously the case of the man on Somerton beach is fascinating. Not only does he remain completely unidentified, his cause of death is still unknown. Part of that could be because investigative techiques in those days were not as fully supported with DNA, high tech communications, advanced forensic and medical techniques and so on, but partly it could also be because the man, whoever he really is, did such a good job of obscuring his identity. He simply arrived in Adelaide, deposited a suitcase with items that also didn't help in identifying him in a luggage storage locker, and appeared on the beach dead.

The story was originally told to Greenwood by her much loved father. A story weaver in his own right, it doesn't take a lot of thought to work out where Greenwood got her ability, the book is very much a meandering through her memories of him, his time in Adelaide, a bit of the facts as they are known about the case itself, some speculation and a reprint of a crime fiction short story featuring Greenwood's well known character Miss Phryne Fisher. I suspect the speculative aspects are going to drive some readers nuts, although I found them interesting and certainly very thought-provoking.

I must admit I found the tone, and the nature of TAMAM SHUD interesting and enjoyable. Greenwood has a particular way of telling a story which can be quite engaging, and whilst there's absolutely and utterly nothing new that can be proven about the Somerton Man by this book, there also seems to be absolutely and utterly nothing wrong with casting a little light on a true, real-life mystery, and posing a few what-ifs.
 

It's almost impossible now to read these books and not have visions of the perfect Essie Davies as Phryne in the TV series wafting elegantly before your eyes. Which actually enhances the storylines as, although always beautifully described and outlined by Greenwood, she now has a physicality and a more three dimensional feel. It also didn't hurt that the dialogue, which was always crisp, sharp, clever and funny, has a voice as well.

I sort of lost my way with the Phryne Fisher series somewhere back in the middle of what is now 19 books, and it was actually sharing the listening to the audio books with himself in the car that rekindled interest. It's too easy to forget the humour, and the gentle social commentary in these books, especially when the cover art and the blurbs often tend to suggest that there's something slightly on the cosy side about the series. Whilst the delivery might be cleverly on the lighter side, and the humour subtle and very tongue in cheek, the plotlines are often veering into non-cosy territory (as does Miss Fisher's love life), but possibly, to my memory, never quite so pointedly as in UNNATURAL HABITS.

For a book that's set in 1929 there's something depressingly current day about the main storyline - the mistreatment, abuse and exploitation of young girls. Girls who are the victims of rape, abuse, poverty, neglect or simply girls who made a mistake, they were abandoned to systems and organisations which, whilst carefully revealed in UNNATURAL HABITS, were obviously appalling. Whilst Greenwood is cautious in her revelations of details of what went on, there is no masking the revulsion and disapproval of the institutions and facilities that treated young women, and their babies with such awful cruelty. It's the restraint with which many of the observations are made that makes them all the more pointed.

As with all things Phryne however, this is not a single stream plot. In the search for missing young girls, Phryne encounters a variety of establishments and people from the "gentlemen-only" Blue Cat Club, to the farming commune of women in Bacchus Marsh, and a brush with the "middle-class" which seems to have the potential to derail Phryne more than any of society's "fringe dwellers" ever would. In a particularly satisfying sidebar, there's also the small matter of a vigilante anaesthetising and surgically, and very skilfully, sterilising serial women abusers.

Melbourne, and Greater Victoria, are always lovingly rendered in these books. There's obviously considerable research into the locations of the period, but the books never read as a geographical treatise. The action insinuates itself into the landscape of the time beautifully, the little details of what Phryne sees, and experiences, come alive for the reader, transporting you back, for example, to the fledgling Apple Orchards of Bacchus Marsh and surrounds.

As you'd expect, there is quite a bit of ladylike and very non-ladylike action in these books. Phryne commits acts of daring doing in order to save the day, ably assisted by her retinue of minions (now where have I heard that word before...). Her household continues to evolve, her wardrobe to beguile, and her Melbourne enchant. You can't help but foster a sneaking desire for an Adventuresses Club, to see the wonder of the Blue Cat Club, and the Block Arcade as it was then.

UNNATURAL HABITS, by dint of the subject matter that it tackles, seems to have headed off into slightly darker territory than previous books, but it does it elegantly, and with the same sense of wrongs to be righted, offences to be avenged, and life to be lived.