William McNaughton was not a nice man. To be frank, he was a bully and a child molester who sexually assaulted his own daughter.
So when he dies of a blow to the head - an especially vicious blow to the head - there are plenty of people who would have wanted him dead.
Despite that, the cops - well, one cop in particular - have decided that his son Bill, a pilot with a violent temper, is the guilty party.
At about the same time someone was bashing the senior McNaughton's head in with a rock some ne-er-do-wells kidnapped a young girl whose father had the fortune (or misfortune) to win a sweepstakes.
Enter Phryne Fisher, Kerry Greenwood's sleek and seductive private eye: She has to find out what really happened to the elder McNaughton and try to rescue the missing girl from some especially vile kidnappers while, along the way, doing her best to not get murdered in the process. In 'Flying Too High' she is also (a) trying to bolster the confidence of a young artist, (b) posing nude for a statue, (c) worrying how her new butler and cook will react to her somewhat casual view of morality and (d) trying her best to seduce a handsome, young, somewhat clumsy doctor.
It's great fun and Greenwood manages to tell this somewhat complex tale in a remarkably short novel that has a regiment of interesting characters between the covers including a female pilot who can "sense the air" and a delightfully amoral Italian sculptor.
Set in the Roaring Twenties, 'Flying Too High' captures the madcap recklessness of that decade and gives Phryne fans yet another reason to cheer her exploits.
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