Amazingly, it took me some time to realize the reason I loved Phryne [Fisher of Miss Fisher's Mysteries] and continually returned to her, was not just the exquisite clothes, or the perfect Louise Brooks hair, or the fact that no matter how many times I watched an episode I could never remember the plot and so it always somehow seemed new. It was because she was a grown-up. She was not getting married. She was not having children ("I don't understand the appeal," she likes to say). Her power was not in her potential to be matched up. Her power was her. Full stop. It was so satisfying.
I think often about how the best stories we have about women outside of marriage and motherhood are almost always about women detectives. Their lives alone, literally and figuratively, are not enough to support what we understand as narrative, and so the most basic, most recognizable narrative is attached to them: whodunnit. In this extremely formalized structure, they are allowed to float along, being messy, or complicated, or elderly, or fashionable. We understand their purpose. Phryne’s real purpose, of course, is to live well, and love well, and do exactly what she pleases.
I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself (2024), p. 145-6.