Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood (1994)

No. 6 in the delightful Phryne Fisher series. It starts with the murder of a circus performer - a hermaphrodite Mr. Christopher - Chris/Cross or Christine. (Christine Christopher? Really?). Phryne gets involved as her half gypsy friend Alan Ray and his carny friends come to her to figure out why Farrell's Circus is having a long spate of bad luck. To figure this out, she has to become part of the circus. Phryne challenges her self (as does the author of her character we find out in the post-book interview) to do without her elegant surroundings, servants, money and status. She is bored, so enjoys the excitement of learning a new skill - standing up on a moving horse, being kept up by the centrifugal force at a certain speed around the circus ring. Greenwood herself has learned this skill and used it deftly in her narrative.

It was fun learning about the circus - the hierarchies, the friendships, how this motley crew manage to live together for extended periods of time. A reminder that dwarfs and other "freaks" had few career alternatives. This book seemed relevant in the current transgender conversation. One of the policemen keeps saying that is was good that "it" was killed, and his boss keeps correcting him.

The plot is complex as usual, but brings together all the disparate pieces in the end. There are a couple of gangs in Melbourne, that the police hope won't get as bad as in Chicago. (Sometimes when I finish listening to a book and don't feel like going on to another immediately, I will start re-listening to the book from the beginning, picking up on clues that were there. On the second listen I realized the gang piece was much more important to the plot than I originally realized.) There's Lizard Elsie who curses up a storm, but takes care of constable Tommy Harris. Harris is fairly new to the fore, his boss is a good cop, but a bit rough around the edges, Jack Robinson continues to be an excellent detective inspector, not jumping to conclusions and accepting Phryne's help.

The circus has it's problems. Half of it as been bought out by this nasty guy Jones and it is struggling for survival. The clowns are a sad pair of brothers, one with a serious depression problem. Molly the horse trainer is in despair at the loss of her love - Mr. Christopher, the carnies or carnival folks have their own issues. They are considered below the circus folks and set up their own camp, but they need each other. The carnival provides entertainment for the circus audience after the main show, and the circus provides the audience for the carnival.

Phryne has to act submissive and even tolerate the groping of Mr. Jones, though she does manage to "accidentally" kick him in the shins. She strains her fit body to learn these new tricks on the back of a horse, wears garish second hand clothes, but finds herself lonely and missing the status and recognition she usually gets. She can't go to her carny friend Alan. The only ones friendly to her are Dulcie, a juggler and Bruno the bear. One of the clowns seems interested and she finds her way to him. In the end she solves the mystery, but lands in the hands of Jones, where things get very dicey, but of course her friends in the police and carnival come to her rescue.

(Longer review that this book would warrant, but I was on vacation and had time to jot things down. No guarantees on spellings of character names, but don't have time to hunt down a physical copy of the book. Just saw this on Facebook's Best Book Quotes: "Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading." I'm the opposite in this case, don't know how it is spelled, just writing what I heard.)