Australian author Kerry Greenwood, best known for her Phryne Fisher murder mystery novels, has died at the age of 70 after an illness.
She was given “a suitably royal send-off” at a small service in Melbourne’s Yarraville on Sunday, according to her partner, writer David Greagg.
Greenwood, who lived in nearby Seddon, died on 26 March. Greagg, posting on Greenwood’s official facebook page on Monday, said he had refrained from making a public announcement until after the service.
“Kerry was an extremely private person and had no wish to share her pain with anyone,” he wrote. He said her “condition had deteriorated to the point where I could not keep her at home any longer”.
“The end was mercifully quick thereafter.”
Born in 1954 in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Footscray, Greenwood started writing fiction as a child, and wrote her first book as a teenager – a fantasy novel titled The Magic Stone. She later studied English and law at the University of Melbourne, and worked as a criminal defence lawyer for Victorian Legal Aid for more than two decades.
Her enthusiasm for justice and writing bore literary fruit, most notably in her Phryne Fisher novels, about a glamorous 1920s amateur detective, and her later Corinna Chapman series, about a mystery-solving baker in Melbourne.
Greenwood wrote the first Miss Fisher novel, Cocaine Blues, in 1989, and over the following three decades, went on to write 22 more. Immensely popular, the series spawned a hit ABC television show starring Essie Davis, which ran for three seasons, the first of which was picked up in more than 73 territories worldwide. It was followed by the 2020 film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, and the 30-episode Chinese series, Miss S.
In 2003, Greenwood was given the Ned Kelly Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising her “outstanding contribution” to Australian crime writing, and in 2020, awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to literature.
Greenwood was a prolific writer whose output included plays, award-winning children’s books and nonfiction, including the 1996 essay collection Things She Loves: Why Women Kill.
Even after her writing career took off in the 1990s, Greenwood continued to work as a locum solicitor. At her funeral service on Sunday, her brother said, “The quest for justice is what drove her.”
While Greenwood’s publisher said her writing had slowed in recent years due to poor health, she was still writing until recently, posting on Facebook on 18 March about the newest Phryne Fisher book, due out later this year.
“Murder in the Cathedral is undergoing transformation from an extensively edited Word file into proper pages. This is a slow process, involving mysterious alchemy, scattering of rose petals, muttered incantations and the like, but it progresses,” she wrote.
On the news of Greenwood’s death, her Facebook page was flooded with tributes from fans and readers.
Allen & Unwin, Greenwood’s publisher since 1997, wrote in a statement that she “had two burning ambitions in life: to be a legal aid solicitor and defend the poor and voiceless; and to be a famous author.
“As a duty solicitor she was outrageously successful. As an author, even more so. Some of her earnings were spent on riotous living, but Kerry gave a lot of it away without fanfare to those who really needed it: fellow authors down on their luck, impecunious neighbours and, above all, to charities.
“Kerry was a costumier, a cook, an embroiderer and a seamstress who made most of her own clothes, as well as a chorister and a very wise and exceptionally kind woman. Passionate about history, literature, cats and Egypt – indeed, curious about almost everything – Kerry will be sincerely missed by her family, friends, colleagues and readers.”
On Instagram, actor Essie Davis, who brought Greenwood’s famous sleuth to life on screen, wrote: “Kerry gifted us one of the most powerful and positive and inspiring heroines in Phryne Fisher. She has rescued and empowered so many people. I’m so grateful Kerry chose me to embody her. What a blessing. Kerry’s spunk and flare and research and moral compass. A great fun and fabulous guide to life. Vale Kerry, you are one of the angels.”
