Ruddy Gore

There are some... baffling choices that are made, especially with regards to depictions of Chinese people. In describing Shanghai, Greenwood at least showed some knowledge of the city, but... I find it baffling that the character says he was sent to Shanghai to learn Cantonese (languages around Shanghai are from the Wu family, Cantonese is part of the Yue family... specifically, I would think his family would send him to somewhere like Hong Kong or Guangzhou). I mean, the language is named 'Cantonese' specifically because it occurs in Canton (or Guangzhou). While her portrayal of this character isn't negative (he is largely charming), it is... deeply troubling and odd.

This is one of the books where I think I like the show's adaptation more. There are some things that I wish were left in (like Herbert the callboy, who is super adorable in his desire to help Phryne), but I appreciate that they wrapped up all the guilty people into one person... instead of there being, like one guy who played a prank and killed a woman... and the dresser who accidentally overdosed the actor he worked for (and was the lover to)... and the other dresser who had killed a woman three decades prior.

I do appreciate some of the elements that are there in trying to create the mystery that the show doesn't use. I like that there are some pranksters who are running amok that provide some red herrings and feel appropriate because the setting is a stage (Herbert uses green food colouring to prank the manager's whisky, an actress hid two of her gloves and then her prank was co-opted by another person who was trying to out the murderer from three-decades prior). I do like that the stage carpenter was running a prank with the doorman (who co-opted the actress's prank) because he was disgruntled about the lack of respect, but I don't understand why he'd... rig the sandbag to fall (when that feels like something the murderer would've done, and it was explained away as him "going loopier" with monomania).

Overall, I think there were way too many moving parts and that the show did much better my smooshing a few people into one. The book would've also benefited and been a more interesting mystery to solve.