This starts with a bang. No really, it starts with a gratuitous sex-scene because I guess Greenwood knows you should always start as you mean to go on.

A somewhat cluttered plot (or set of plots). Seems like perhaps part of the problem is Greenwood has fallen in love with her many, many characters and wants to bring them out, especially since they don't all get to feature on the TV show. I have some sympathy for them and they are good enough company to make that forgivable, but then of course Phrynne's holiday in Daylesford is cluttered with dozens of new characters too and 3 different mysteries, morally grey things, police doing sneaky underhanded things that we are supposed to approve of, etc etc including the sex-siren thing.

I'm glad Greenwood has previously said this is James Bond with a woman in the driver's seat because when you look at it that way, it's not sillier than other examples of the genre (and a great deal less offensive). Phrynne as the ultimate femme fatale is somehow more acceptable when there is an abundance of ridiculously attractive women and she's not the one-and-only. She is polyamorous but genuinely wants other women to also be satisfied in bed. I enjoyed myself, perhaps partly because Daylesford and Hepburn Springs are where my family used to holiday when I was a kid.

I can never approve of Rudyard Kipling in any context and am not sure what he is doing here.

Overall this was more fun than not and by book 21 it's remarkable to still be this enjoyable!