Kerry Isabelle Greenwood (born 1954 ) is an Australian author and lawyer. She has written many plays and books, most notably a string of historical detective novels centred on the character of Phryne Fisher, which was adapted as the popular television series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. She writes mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, children's stories, and plays. Greenwood earned the Australian women's crime fiction Davitt Award in 2002 for her young adult novel The Three-Pronged Dagger.

Early life and education

Greenwood grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray, where she still lives today. She attended Geelong Road State School (now Footscray Primary School), Maribyrnong College and the University of Melbourne, where she graduated with Bachelor of Arts (English) and Bachelor of Laws degrees in 1979. Whilst at university, Greenwood worked at a women's refuge.

Career

In 1982, Greenwood was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, and worked full-time as a criminal defence lawyer for Victoria Legal Aid until becoming a professional writer. Since that time, she has remained a locum duty solicitor for Legal Aid, practising in the Sunshine Magistrates' Court. She began writing books at sixteen, but remained unpublished. In 1988 she entered one of her eight novels for the Vogel prize; although not successful, one of the judges offered her a contract for two detective novels. In the 2020 Australia Day Honours Greenwood was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

Personal life

Greenwood lives with a "wizard", the mathematician and author David Greagg.

Books

Phryne Fisher historical mysteries

• #Cocaine Blues (1989) aka Death by Misadventure • #Flying Too High (1990) • #Murder on the Ballarat Train (1991) • #Death at Victoria Dock (1992) • #The Green Mill Murder (1993) • #Blood and Circuses (1994) • #Ruddy Gore (1995) • #Urn Burial (1996) • #Raisins and Almonds (1997) • #Death Before Wicket (1999) • #Away with the Fairies (2001) • #Murder in Montparnasse (2002) • #The Castlemaine Murders (2003) • #Queen of the Flowers (2004) • #Death by Water (2005) • #Murder in the Dark (2006) • #Murder on a Midsummer Night (2008) • #Dead Man's Chest (2010) • #Unnatural Habits (2012) • #Murder and Mendelssohn (2013) • #Death in Daylesford (2020) • #Murder in Williamstown (2022) • The Phryne Fisher Mysteries: Cocaine Blues / Flying Too High (omnibus) (2004) • A Question of Death (short story collection) (2008) • The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions (short story collection) (2021)

Corinna Chapman mysteries

• # Earthly Delights (2004) • # Heavenly Pleasures (2005) • # Devil's Food (2006) • # Trick or Treat (2007) • # Forbidden Fruit (2009) • # Cooking the Books (2011) • # The Spotted Dog (2018)

Delphic Women

Spinouts (with Michael Pryor and Catherine Randle)

Stormbringer

The Broken Wheel, Whaleroad, Cave Rats and Feral are prequels to the Stormbringer trilogy. Characters in Stormbringer refer to events in those books, but are otherwise independent.

Novels

• The Wandering Icon (1992) • The Childstone Cycle (1994) • Quest (1996) • The Broken Wheel (1996) • Whaleroad (1996) • Cave Rats (1997) • Feral (1998) • Whaleroad, Cave Rats and Feral published in one volume in 2002 • Alien Invasions (2000) (with Shannah Jay and Lucy Sussex, edited by Paul Collins and Meredith Costain) • A Different Sort of Real: The Diary of Charlotte McKenzie, Melbourne 1918-1919 (2001), also titled The Deadly Flu as printed in 2012, and Contagion: My Australian Story, Scholastic Australia, 2020. • The Three-Pronged Dagger (2002) • Danger Do Not Enter (2003) • The Long Walk (2004) • Journey to Eureka (2005) • Out of the Black Land (2010)

Collections

Anthologies edited

Short fiction

"Jetsam" (1998) in Dreaming Down-Under (ed. Jack Dann, Janeen Webb)

Non-fiction

TV and film

The Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries television series was filmed in and around Melbourne in 2011 and premiered on ABC1 on 24 February 2012. A second series was commissioned in August 2012 and filming began in February 2013 and aired starting 6 September 2013. A third series was commissioned in June 2014 and began airing on 8 May 2015. A film that continues the story started in the television series was released in 2022: Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears. The TV series was redone by HBO Asia in 2020 as Miss S, set in Shanghai in the 1930s instead of Melbourne in the 1920s. The show was filmed in Mandarin, Miss Phryne Fisher was renamed as Su Wenli, Inspector Robinson was renamed as Luo Qiuheng, and Dorothy 'Dot' Williams was renamed as Xiao Tao Zi.

Awards and nominations