Bondi, 1947. Siobhan Murphy is a dance teacher with a studio above the arcade, an Irish setter called Rory at her heel, and rent she insists on paying herself. When something goes missing in her corner of Sydney — ration coupons, private letters, a children's recital fund — people come to the woman who notices what a face is trying not to say.
These are gentle, atmospheric mysteries in the key of Maisie Dobbs and Molly Murphy: no murders, no gore, just crimes of livelihood and dignity solved with patience and a sharp eye. And running under all eight books, one steady spine — a woman in a marrying decade who keeps choosing herself.
The Books
Book 1
The Pavilion Pilfering
Four coins short in the Pavilion cashbox, then the ration coupons, and a tea room whose figures will not tally. The ledgers are committee documents, Mrs Hatch says, and not general reading. She means to read them.
Not yet on sale
Book 2
The Waverley Correspondence
Recover the letters from the lending library, the client says, all of them, before anyone reads them. The retainer would cover the bank's final notice. It is the simplicity of the request that worries her.
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Book 3
The Recital Caper
The children's recital tin should hold eighteen pounds. It holds twelve, and the brass lock carries not a single scratch. Whoever opened that door had a key, and keys in Bondi are lent, not stolen.
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Book 4
The Bondi Arrangement
Behind a loose brick near the greengrocer's, six pounds a month has been changing hands for four years, paid for a locket that was never stolen. The widow wants it stopped. The men collecting are not used to refusal.
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Book 5
The Dancer’s Dilemma
The missing music box is the smallest thing wrong at the Flanagan house, where the roses are pruned too neatly for one man's wages. Then a word follows her home from the tram platform. Sold.
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Book 6
The Solo Dance
Father Connelly lies to her, badly, on a Tuesday morning. The chalice is not where the parish believes it is, the collection ledger will not balance, and every key to the hall belongs to someone trusted.
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Book 7
The Rafferty Bequest
Two hundred and eighty pounds, saved a shilling at a time by a dead schoolteacher, go to a nephew nobody in Bondi has met. The Melbourne solicitors call the claim sound; the parish calls it something else.
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Book 8
The Murphy Method
Every week the Pavilion's ticket receipts run a few shillings short, and Mrs Hatch is certain a member of staff is helping herself. On the trams they say Calder, and the trams talk about more than the Pavilion.
Not yet on sale
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