So the standard opening gambit is established, with Phryne firmly at the helm, by turns charming and bullying information from the hapless cast. Greenwood does a good job on them, revealing the vanities, jealousies and various neuroses lurking beneath the greasepaint that are endemic in the acting fraternity. Before long we have the ghost of a long-dead actress in the wings, bits of property turning up in unexpected places, then the demise of an innocent prompt, who is crushed by a curtain counterweight. Dangerous places, theatres. Among the cast there is the blue-eyed heartless cad, Gwilym Evans, the beautiful, self-loving Leila Esperance, and all the ageing hacks, alcoholics and hopefuls in between, not to mention resentful tradesmen. There’s also an old doorman who has been there forever in his army greatcoat and who spends most of his time asleep on the job. None of these people is clear of suspicion, but the course of Phryne's investigation is a muddied and confused one that might have its origins a generation earlier, in another country.

Nevertheless, with the help of Inspector Jack Robinson, Phryne gnaws away at everyone’s secrets, in the process of which she manages a sexual dalliance with an impossibly beautiful Chinese man whose relevance to the story is peripheral to say the least. Still, Little Bourke Street is close to Her Majesty’s after all, and the ravishing, green-eyed, unashamedly predatorial Miss Fisher always gets her man in more than one sense. One of the strengths of Greenwood’s writing is her fond and convincing recreation of 1920s Melbourne, and when Phryne sallies into Chinatown long before it becomes a tourist precinct one can feel the inscrutableness and smell the mysterious pungencies. Her fans will like Ruddy Gore, but for me it lacks some of the dash and dynamism of earlier books. Phryne is at her best when she’s doing things, haring about in her Hispano-Suiza. In this book she spends much of her time interrogating people inside the confines of a theatre, which gives it a slightly bogged-down feel.

Well-known screen writer Peter Yeldham entered the crime fiction stakes last year with Reprisal, about a bank heist carried out by some old army mates who then go their separate ways and live happily from the proceeds until the past rears its ugly head. It was a promising but ultimately disappointing book. Now he has backed up with a nightmarish thriller, Without Warning, which is much more impressive. Like Kerry Greenwood, Yeldham writes about what he knows, in this case the film industry, which allows him to background the story with authority and make a few observations on the ins and outs of the Oz film scene, not many of which are complimentary. He also makes use of the latest computer technology.

The two main characters, Megan and David Turner, both work in the movie business, she as a producer and he as a frustrated director. The story begins harmlessly enough when they are pulled over by a traffic cop, Arch Whitelaw, for a minor offence. An argument ensues, then the whole thing turns out to be a mistake. Whitelaw, who has a fascistic view of his law-enforcement role, is not prepared to let the matter pass, and decides to insinuate himself into Megan’s life. He calls around, meets her in the supermarket, turns up at tennis and so on; Megan makes the mistake of telling David, hoping that the problem will go away. It doesn’t, and then it’s too late, because Whitelaw has set up a situation suggesting he and Megan are lovers. She’s trapped, then belatedly makes a complaint to Whitelaw’s superior, thus goading him further.

Things go from bad to worse. Whitelaw digs up everything he can on the Turners, in the course of which he unearths a dark secret concerning Megan’s boss, who had fled from East Germany during the height of that oppressive regime. Whitelaw has access to vast banks of information via the computer bulletin boards and databases to which he subscribes, and through this facility he is able to blackmail innocent people. Whitelaw is a very nasty piece of work indeed, but when Megan and David finally decide to fight back Yeldham shows how all this fancy gadgetry can be a two-edged sword if someone with the motivation and skill – Megan – decides to hack into his system and bring him undone. Not, however, before a few harrowing experiences. Yeldham writes with a minimalist, undemanding style that builds deceptively, holding the reader and not letting go until the last unexpected – and highly inventive – twist. And if there’s a lesson in Without Warning, perhaps it’s always to be polite to policemen.