There's also for both heroes a carefully researched background that takes you into the period without every making you feel like you're reading a textbook: the background in Dead Man Riding is the controversy over the Boer War (which has distinct echoes with Iraq); Phyrne strides the landmark streets of Melbourne or takes to the controls of a Tiger Moth with equal detail.
Yet on balance, I still have to class Phyrne as my favourite, not because of better writing, plot or research, but because she lives in an age closer to our own. Phyrne is happily, comfortably sexual and openly defiant of convention - even if I don't share her interest in frocks. The First World War has destroyed the restrictive frame within which the Edwardian Nell must operate. Still, I'll be visiting with Nell again, even if I will be frustrated by the social restrictions that also frustrate her.
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