The nice men at P+O are worried. A succession of jewellery thefts from first class passengers is hardly the best advertisement for their cruise liners, particularly when it is likely that a passenger is doing the stealing.

Phryne Fisher, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, Cupid's bow lips and Chanel travelling suits, is exactly the sort of elegant sleuth to take on a ring of jewellery thieves aboard the high seas - or at least, aboard the SS Hinemoa on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. With the Maharani - the Great Queen of Sapphires - as the bait, Phryne rises magnificently to the challenge.

There are shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous husbands, mickey finns, blackmail and attempted murder, all before the thieves find out - as have countless love-smitten men before them - that where the glamorous and intelligent Phryne is involved, resistance is futile.

"Greenwood's strength lies in her ability to create characters that are wholly satisfying: the bad guys are bad, and the good guys are great" - Vogue

"Miss Fisher is a remarkable and engaging creature who can solve whodunits as easily as if she were the naughty niece of Miss Marple" - Sydney Morning Herald

"Greenwood's prose has a dagger in its garter; her hero is raunchy and promiscuous in the best sense" - Weekend Australian

"Fisher, a feisty sophisticate of the 1920s whose honour lies with the greater good. She's all class and intelligence: a seductive creature with a great wardrobe" - Australian Style

"Phryne Fisher is gutsy and adventurous, and endowed with plenty of grey matter" - West Australian

"Elegant, fabulously wealthy and sharp as a tack, Phryne sleuths with customary panache ... [she is] irresistibly charming" - The Age

"Phryne Fisher is young, wealthy, beautiful, smart, confident and independently minded, and she has a knack for solving murders when she is not sipping a strengthening cocktail or planning another seduction" - The Australian's Review of Books