Even Knowing the Story, It's Still a Good Time
4 stars
I already quite enjoyed the show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, so when I started seeing some of the books that it was based on being sold in the secondhand shop, I had to get them and see how different they are.
In terms of differences, while I understand why certain changes were made within the TV adaptation, I absolutely loved how certain characters were presented within the book over their show counterparts. I really like both presentations, but the book actually lets us get to know Mac a lot more (and she was always one of my favourite side characters in the show). I also feel like, while the show isn't totally disrespectful to them (other than the understandable antagonism between the police and the communists), Bert and Cec's role in the book is more clear and they don't get sidelined nearly as much.
Something I really like in …
I already quite enjoyed the show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, so when I started seeing some of the books that it was based on being sold in the secondhand shop, I had to get them and see how different they are.
In terms of differences, while I understand why certain changes were made within the TV adaptation, I absolutely loved how certain characters were presented within the book over their show counterparts. I really like both presentations, but the book actually lets us get to know Mac a lot more (and she was always one of my favourite side characters in the show). I also feel like, while the show isn't totally disrespectful to them (other than the understandable antagonism between the police and the communists), Bert and Cec's role in the book is more clear and they don't get sidelined nearly as much.
Something I really like in the book regarding those character changes is that, by virtue of being a targeted communist and activist (striker), Bert does get away with being able to point out the ineptitude of the police. Because he's there, it actually makes it a little easier to tolerate the existence of the police.
Another thing that was in the book is that there was actually a singular woman police officer, and she was basically removed from the whole plot of the show. And while I'm not a fan of the attempts to kind of girl boss her a bit, I do think that she could provide another necessary foil for the police being inept. As in, she's on the force at a time when women were being underpaid and underrecognised and couldn't go any higher than a "woman police officer," enabling the force to be able to "deal with" women and children. For her character, this allows her to kind of highlight how absolutely backwards cops are, even from an inside perspective... which she does a little, but it's very minimal (and doing it more could've provided a bit more space to explore those themes, which do lead back to the intentional inability of police to handle certain problems).
Perhaps that kind of low-key theme in Miss Fisher has been why it's captivated me for so long, which is something that a lot of mystery books often struggle with more. The books still have the frustrating aspect of relying on the police (to do the jobs they never really do well), but it's actually handled a bit differently because almost everyone (Phryne, Bert, Cec, and Mac) tends to start off trying to handle the problems themselves and then go "Well, I guess if we have to... get the cops." And while it's still not perfect, that does actually provide space for better commentary (even if by accident).
Oh, and I like that the book doesn't do one of the things the show does, which is the "will they, won't they" romance of Phryne and Jack (the detective-inspector). So far, there has been zero romantic tension between the two. There is the friendly banter where Phryne is frequently trying to get him to let her participate in investigations, but there hasn't been a suggestion of romance. I didn't really like this because I often found that it took away from other relationships in the show in order to focus on these two; it also often took away from the mystery itself.