Phryne Fisher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fishingfortrouble) wrote2018-08-19 11:08 pm
fishingfortrouble) wrote2018-08-19 11:08 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
-Born to Henry and Margaret Fisher in Collingwood, Victoria, circa 1900 (canon is never terribly clear on this point) on the summer solstice, eldest of two children.
-Unfortunately, Phryne's early life was not the greatest. While the family appears to have never, precisely, been destitute Henry Fisher was overfond of gambling and drinking and not really the best at money management besides leaving Phryne and her sister to grow up in poverty.
-Things were only made worse when Phryne's sister Jane vanished while she and Phryne were at a circus together (the exact date is, again, unclear but appears to have been in Phryne's preteen years); she would eventually be presumed dead, although her body was never recovered. (Phryne, understandable, was all but gutted by the loss.)
-Exactly what happened in the intervening years is never made clear, but at some point, Phryne signed up to be a nurse in WWI, serving near the front lines in France
-However, rather than return home {at the end of the war} she remained in France, where she eventually fell in love with a painter by the name of René Dubois.
-Unfortunately, this did not turn out terribly well; while things were certainly idyllic for a time, eventually René turned abusive and manipulative, leaving Phryne struggling to find an escape.
-The end of the war also brought another surprise: with most of her relatives (including the more well-to-do branch of the family tree) having gone off to war and subsequently died, the family estates (and titles associated) fell to her parents, leaving her father and mother a Baron and Baroness respectively and Phryne significantly more well off than she had been
-What, exactly, Phryne got up to after successfully managing to break things off with René is unclear, but it's implied that it involved at least some amount of travel and most likely some sort of adventure besides.
-Cut to: nearly a decade after the end of the war. Phryne has just recently returned from her various trips abroad, ostensibly to leave her family, in her own words, "as far behind as possible" (her mother and father having moved to England). In actuality, however, it's because Murdoch Foyle - the man who kidnapped and murdered her sister, though he was never conclusively linked to the crime - is nearing the point at which he's up for parole, and Phryne means to do everything she can to see that he's locked away forever.
-There is, however, some time yet; while Phryne does go to speak with Foyle at the prison at which he's being held nothing comes of it.
-Time passes, and several entirely unrelated murders ensue, during the course of which Phryne comes across not only the local police inspector (one Jack Robinson), but also begins to gather a small collection of various other friends and allies.
-And then comes the news that Murdoch Foyle has killed himself in prison, and that his foster mother had asked to have him cremated; news which understandably leaves Phryne more than a little out of sorts.
-This is, however, a ruse. Rather than Foyle himself, his foster mother has been cremated in his stead, leaving Foyle once again at large which is only all the more unsettling as far as Phryne is concerned, and given that one of his first acts as a free man is to kill a member of Phryne's aunt's household staff she has ever right to be concerned!
-Things come to a head shortly thereafter when Foyle kidnaps Phryne herself. As it turns out, he believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharoah; Phryne is the fourth "goddess" he needs in order to ascend to eternal life on the summer solstice. (He had previously thought Phryne's sister to be the fourth, thanks to her father having made an error when writing down his sister's birthday on her birth certificate and putting down Phryne's instead.) As this ascension requires the death of all four goddesses - and thus Phryne's - she is none too pleased about any of this.
-Fortunately, she is able to stall for just long enough for Jack to come to her rescue; and with the information that she (and the police) had uncovered in the process there's enough evidence to conclusively link Foyle to a number of murders, Jane's among them, and put Foyle back behind bars for good. And with that chapter of her life concluded - and Jane's remains collected and re-interred in the family plot - Phryne's life gets back to normal.
-...Which means sticking her nose into more murders. But for a while, these are simply murders that are completely unrelated to each other and have nothing at all to do with Phryne's past. (Although her professional - and personal - relationship with Jack begins to see more development.)
-And then Phryne's father shows up again out of the blue. According to him, he's come to visit while Phryne's mother is otherwise occupied in London and has gotten himself thoroughly embroiled in the affairs of magic show - one that has just been witness to an unfortunate on-stage murder. And if the troupe doesn't succeed in making their money back neither does he (his money management skills, sadly, have not improved since Phryne's childhood.) Deeply displeased though she is, Phryne solves the case, deals with her father's money troubles and then more or less sets him up in a hotel suitably out of her way for the time being.
-Further mysteries ensue, thankfully without her father being involved, and it's at the end of one of these (involving a young boy hiring her to find his brother, which draws her into the world of street urchins and various thefts associated, along with the usual murder) that she finds herself in 6I.
-Unfortunately, Phryne's early life was not the greatest. While the family appears to have never, precisely, been destitute Henry Fisher was overfond of gambling and drinking and not really the best at money management besides leaving Phryne and her sister to grow up in poverty.
-Things were only made worse when Phryne's sister Jane vanished while she and Phryne were at a circus together (the exact date is, again, unclear but appears to have been in Phryne's preteen years); she would eventually be presumed dead, although her body was never recovered. (Phryne, understandable, was all but gutted by the loss.)
-Exactly what happened in the intervening years is never made clear, but at some point, Phryne signed up to be a nurse in WWI, serving near the front lines in France
-However, rather than return home {at the end of the war} she remained in France, where she eventually fell in love with a painter by the name of René Dubois.
-Unfortunately, this did not turn out terribly well; while things were certainly idyllic for a time, eventually René turned abusive and manipulative, leaving Phryne struggling to find an escape.
-The end of the war also brought another surprise: with most of her relatives (including the more well-to-do branch of the family tree) having gone off to war and subsequently died, the family estates (and titles associated) fell to her parents, leaving her father and mother a Baron and Baroness respectively and Phryne significantly more well off than she had been
-What, exactly, Phryne got up to after successfully managing to break things off with René is unclear, but it's implied that it involved at least some amount of travel and most likely some sort of adventure besides.
-Cut to: nearly a decade after the end of the war. Phryne has just recently returned from her various trips abroad, ostensibly to leave her family, in her own words, "as far behind as possible" (her mother and father having moved to England). In actuality, however, it's because Murdoch Foyle - the man who kidnapped and murdered her sister, though he was never conclusively linked to the crime - is nearing the point at which he's up for parole, and Phryne means to do everything she can to see that he's locked away forever.
-There is, however, some time yet; while Phryne does go to speak with Foyle at the prison at which he's being held nothing comes of it.
-Time passes, and several entirely unrelated murders ensue, during the course of which Phryne comes across not only the local police inspector (one Jack Robinson), but also begins to gather a small collection of various other friends and allies.
-And then comes the news that Murdoch Foyle has killed himself in prison, and that his foster mother had asked to have him cremated; news which understandably leaves Phryne more than a little out of sorts.
-This is, however, a ruse. Rather than Foyle himself, his foster mother has been cremated in his stead, leaving Foyle once again at large which is only all the more unsettling as far as Phryne is concerned, and given that one of his first acts as a free man is to kill a member of Phryne's aunt's household staff she has ever right to be concerned!
-Things come to a head shortly thereafter when Foyle kidnaps Phryne herself. As it turns out, he believes himself to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharoah; Phryne is the fourth "goddess" he needs in order to ascend to eternal life on the summer solstice. (He had previously thought Phryne's sister to be the fourth, thanks to her father having made an error when writing down his sister's birthday on her birth certificate and putting down Phryne's instead.) As this ascension requires the death of all four goddesses - and thus Phryne's - she is none too pleased about any of this.
-Fortunately, she is able to stall for just long enough for Jack to come to her rescue; and with the information that she (and the police) had uncovered in the process there's enough evidence to conclusively link Foyle to a number of murders, Jane's among them, and put Foyle back behind bars for good. And with that chapter of her life concluded - and Jane's remains collected and re-interred in the family plot - Phryne's life gets back to normal.
-...Which means sticking her nose into more murders. But for a while, these are simply murders that are completely unrelated to each other and have nothing at all to do with Phryne's past. (Although her professional - and personal - relationship with Jack begins to see more development.)
-And then Phryne's father shows up again out of the blue. According to him, he's come to visit while Phryne's mother is otherwise occupied in London and has gotten himself thoroughly embroiled in the affairs of magic show - one that has just been witness to an unfortunate on-stage murder. And if the troupe doesn't succeed in making their money back neither does he (his money management skills, sadly, have not improved since Phryne's childhood.) Deeply displeased though she is, Phryne solves the case, deals with her father's money troubles and then more or less sets him up in a hotel suitably out of her way for the time being.
-Further mysteries ensue, thankfully without her father being involved, and it's at the end of one of these (involving a young boy hiring her to find his brother, which draws her into the world of street urchins and various thefts associated, along with the usual murder) that she finds herself in 6I.