I have been tardy these last few days. Mostly since I'm consumed by The Hunger Games and Fringe fandom. Oh well, this is the first book of the Murder Mysteries series of Honourable Miss Fisher. Honestly, this may sound like complete bias but I adore the tv series's Essie Davis more than the book. LOL 
 I think its quite fine on its own as undeniably feminist literature. Miss Fisher is a good character to read albeit the most unconventional modern character to exist in 20s setting. But there's a lot of the materials in the book that are far interesting than in the tv. For example, I would want the girl constable, Jones, to be in the tv series. She's much more interesting than Constable Collins. But a lot of side characters in the tv are more interesting in the first episode(say, Cec, Bert, Dot, Detective-Inspector Robinson) than in this book (which are quickly remedied since the book series is like Southern Vampire series). 
 The writing style is a bit old fashion and descriptive which made this sixteen chapters' novel quite a longish read. Its not that bad, I do want to read something that made me pause 10 minutes a page. Some readings do need to be appreciated in elaborate written form instead of breezing through the pages with constant redundancies. There's some fillers, of course, being the first book, it is expected. 
 I like how it tackle the political thoughts in this book. Communism is not demonized with black and white shades. Capitalism are often parodied. The book wasn't afraid to show the darkness in people. Fisher's herself being an independent woman born in poverty but end up with so much wealth that she observed inane things in most sarcastic way. In some sense, it put her in the grey area. 
 The book by itself doesn't make me want to be a fan but with the added charm from the tv series promising more. It does make a good side reading. 
 Oh, both medium are completely different in a lot of ways. The tv episode condensed the book slightly and changed a lot to be more palatable to the tv audience. The pacing in the book is quite slow and so had the tv was absolute faithful to the book, it can loose a lot of its ADHD TV audience. But I like books and adaptations that are original on its own. Made it worthwhile watching and reading it since its a new experience entirely. 
 I guess, some people had a problem with the perfection that was Miss Fisher which made sense that I like Essie's Fisher more. The book hinted fragility and smartalec but Essie's made Fisher human as all of us and was provided with a lot of back stories. 
 And again, its a series, one should always read a lot of it to come to the conclusion of the character. Half-baked low rated reviews are quite simpletons with too high expectation. Kerry isn't the next Agatha Christie but she made a good alternative than say a lot of male writers that try to write a strong female character but end up being chauvinistic.