Essie Davis

A triumph over adversity tale about women fighting their way back from the bottom of society.

When the body of a drowned and bound young woman is traced to a nuns' home for "wayward girls," the new chief commissioner-stressing the need for diplomacy in dealing with the church-takes Jack off the case. It's left to Phryne to expose the goings-on behind the convent walls.

The captain of a local football team is found hanged before a game against the crosstown rivals, who appear to be the likely suspects. However, Phryne and Jack find evidence that the man may have killed himself and have to figure out why someone might want to make a suicide look like a murder.

Phryne and company head to a chalet to celebrate "Christmas in July," but when they get there they find one of the residents dead, electrocuted while hanging festive lights. Two other deaths quickly follow, though not before Jack and Constable Collins arrive on the scene and Phryne begins to figure out which of the chalet's residents might be the next victim.

The on-set death of the leading man jeopardizes the future of The Bride of Babylon, an Australian silent movie trying to fend off competition from Hollywood. As an investor in the film, Phryne is called in to investigate. When the director is also killed, Phryne decides to direct the proceedings herself.

A bookkeeper and budding announcer at a city radio station is found choked to death, the latest in a succession of incidents threatening to put new stations out of business. In a reversal of roles, by the time Phryne is brought in to investigate, Jack has already established himself as an undercover newsreader.

Jack's ex-father-in-law-the deputy commissioner of police-is implicated in the murder of a prostitute, and Jack and Phryne combine their efforts to get to the bottom of the case. While Jack plays it by the book, Phryne goes undercover as a showgirl at a gentleman's club, where her fan dance starts to ruffle feathers.

When street urchins from a local gang begin to disappear from a poor neighborhood of Melbourne, suspicion falls on a hospital employee who has been using them in his petty crime operation. Cuts on two dead boys suggest they were involved in knife fights, until Phryne and Jack realize there was a darker purpose to the killings.

At a female tennis tournament hosted by Phryne, one of the competitors dies from a spider bite before she even steps onto the court. When it emerges that the spider had been deliberately placed in the woman's empty tennis shoe, it becomes clear that someone has not just a determination to win, but a willingness to kill.

A female night-shift worker dies when her hair gets caught in the factory machinery. The police suspect accidental death, but Phryne smells foul play and Dot goes undercover to get at the truth.