A Red Herring Without Mustard

After reading the first two Flavia de Luce adventures in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's bag, I was thrilled when I noticed the third instalment, A Red Herring Without Mustard on the new releases shelf. This book is a splendid romp through 1950s England led by the world’s smartest and most incorrigible preteen. Flavia de Luce remains irresistibly appealing and continues to charm us.


In the third installment of this bestselling, award-winning, sister-poisoning, bicycle-riding, murder-investigating, and utterly captivating series, Flavia de Luce must draw upon Gypsy lore and her encyclopaedic knowledge of poisons to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice.


“You frighten me,” the old Gypsy woman says. “Never have I seen my crystal ball so filled with darkness.” So begins eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce’s third adventure through the charming but deceptively dark byways of the village of Bishop’s Lacey. The fortune teller also claims to see a woman who is lost and needs help to get home—and Flavia knows it must be her mother Harriet, who died when Flavia was less than a year old. The Gypsy’s vision opens up old wounds for our precocious yet haunted heroine, and sets her mind racing in search of what it could mean.


When Flavia later goes to visit the Gypsy at her encampment, she certainly doesn’t expect to find the poor old woman lying near death in her caravan, bludgeoned in the wee hours. Was it an act of retribution by those who thought that the woman had abducted a local child years before? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how can she prove this crime is connected to the missing baby? Did it have something to do with the weird sect who met at the river to practice their secret rites?


While still pondering the possibilities, Flavia stumbles upon a corpse—that of a notorious layabout and bully she had only recently caught prowling about Buckshaw. The body hangs from a statue of Poseidon in Flavia’s very own backyard, and our unflappable sleuth knows it’s up to her to figure out the significance. Pedalling her faithful bicycle, Gladys, across the countryside in search of clues to both crimes, Flavia uncovers secrets both long-buried and freshly stowed—the dodgy dealings of a local ironworks, the truth behind the Hobblers’ secret meetings, her own ancestor’s ambitious plans—all the while exhausting the patience of Inspector Hewitt. But it’s not long before the evidence starts falling into place, and Flavia must take drastic action to prevent another violent attack.


But who better to sum up the plot than Flavia herself? “It was all so confoundedly complicated: the attack upon Fenella, the gruesome death of Brookie Harewood, the sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance of Porcelain, Harriet’s firedogs turning up in not one but three locations, the strange antique shop of the abominable Pettibones, Miss Mountjoy and the Hobblers, Vanetta Harewood’s long-lost portrait of Harriet, and underneath it all, like the rumble of a stuck organ pipe, the constant drone of Father’s looming bankruptcy.


Barrelling along on her bicycle through the leafy, sun-dappled lanes near her home in the English countryside, Flavia de Luce rides out of the pages of Alan Bradley’s new mystery and straight into our hearts. She’s got all the attributes that you’d expect to find in a middle-aged amateur sleuth: a solid network of connected villagers who pass on trivial bits of information that turn out to be important, an insatiable curiosity, a determination to see wrongs put right and an unwillingness to stay out of things that are really none of her business. Except she’s 11. And in this remarkably self-possessed girl, Alan Bradley has created one of the most endearing protagonists the traditional mystery genre, typified by the works of Agatha Christie, has seen in a very long time.


As satisfying as the mystery is, the multiple award-winning Bradley offers more. At this point in his series, he allows Flavia to reveal her insecurities and frailties so readers who found her insufferably precocious in the first book, with her vast knowledge of chemistry and just about everything else, may warm to her in this one. Despite the hard-shell appearance of her disdain for her sisters, she is deeply hurt by their cruel taunts, and as she grieves the aching, unbearable loss of her mother, Harriet, who died when Flavia was a baby, she exposes the depth of a wound that will never heal. There is almost an allegorical, fairy-tale quality to her life – the mean older sisters, the father trying to raise three demanding, idiosyncratic daughters on his own. The only thing missing is the wicked stepmother.


The book is beautifully written, with fully fleshed characters, even the minor ones such as odd-job man Dogger and Mrs. Mullet, who rules in the kitchen. The descriptions are vivid and lyrical: “Now, almost two weeks into the harvest, most of the countryside had traded its intense summer green for a paler, grayish shade, as if Mother Nature had nodded off a little, and let the colours leak away.”


The title turns out to be a sly play on words. We know the importance of the red herring in a mystery story as a literary device to distract the reader from what’s important or to point her in a different direction. But it can also mean an extremely strong-smelling fish, and the heavy odour of fish in this story is a real clue, not a red herring.

The Weed That Stings The Hangman's Bag

After reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't wait to read Flavia, the remarkable 11 year old sleuth's, second adventure. The Weed That Strings The Hangman's Bag was a joy to read, much like the first book. It is another utterly beguiling murder mystery, that so elegantly leaves out all the bloodshed and darkness usually found in this genre, and focuses on chemical science, intelligent problem solving, and smart, quick witted thinking. Told with Flavia's sparkling narrative, the story is involved and intricate, filled with wit, gaiety, clever writing, and quirky, diverse characters that are so honest in their personalities, their stories and encounters will surely bring a smile to your face.


We are brought into the story, eavesdropping on Flavia, as she contemplates her own death, and how sorry her family would be if she were no longer alive. When preparing to return to her threadbare ancestral home, Flavia comes across the small time broadcast puppeteer and womanizer, Robert Porson, and his beautiful yet flawed assistant, Nialla, who's van had just broken down. After accepting the assistance of Flavia and the vicar in their hour of need, Porson agrees to put on a performance of Jack and the Beanstalk while waiting for the van to be repaired. But when Porson has an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity, and comes to his sudden death in the middle of his memorable performance, Flavia put's aside her chemistry experiments and schemes of vengeance, and sets out in search of Bishop’s Lacey’s deadliest secrets. Feigning an innocence entirely at odds with her shrewdness about adult doings, Flavia uses her skills in chemistry and questioning to figure out which of the many possible suspects murdered Rupert and why, and soon finds herself "untangling two deaths, separated by time but linked by the unlikeliest of threads".


Bradley deftly evokes the period, bringing irreverent and literate text together with humor and memorable personalities to produce an intelligent and amiable story. Perhaps the book's most appealing trait is its glorious ensemble of 1950 English eccentrics, thrown together in the Christiesque rural haven of Bishop's Lacey. The charismatic traveling puppeteer, the domineering vicar's wife, Flavia's evil, sneering sisters, the aberrant aunt, the disturbed but trusted retainer, the gossiping cook, a sinister bureaucrat from the BBC, and a handsome former German prisoner of war, come together with ever changing dynamics to add dimension to Flavia's perspective and character.


Entering Flavia's luminous and spontaneous world for a second time, was as much a delight for me as was my first encounter with her. Her smart, and often sarcastic remarks, her natural ability to think beyond the defined lines, and her fearless and importunate initiative, kept me thoroughly charmed and enthralled from page to page. 
 

The Weed That Strings The Hangman's Bag could be a stand alone book, but I recommend reading it only after you have fully engaged yourself in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. As Bradley intended, reading the books in order will give you a more thorough insight into Flavia's world, and her complex relationships with her antithetical family and the diverse neighborhood residents. 

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

When I walk into the mystery section of a bookstore, I usually find myself overwhelmed by the towering wall of what, in my eyes, looks like hundreds of very similar book covers. Knives moistened with blood, dark figures lurking in shadowed streets, and the faces of doleful looking girls encompass the majority of mystery books. The covers all seem so dark and depressing, making it very challenging for me to single one out. Growing up I had always enjoyed mysteries, whether it was reading a book for a book report in grade school, watching CSI into the late hours of the night, or solving riddles on a road trip, so it seems strange that I would have only read a handful of mystery books since the beginning of my introduction to literacy. And so, this week I decided to indulge myself in the twists and turns of a mystery book by reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the debut novel of Canadian writer Alan Bradley. One of the first things that caught my attention about this book was the cover, as is most often the case. It was not littered with disturbing images, but actually looked quite cheerful and inviting. It turned out to be a delightfully dark English mystery, featuring Flavia de Luce, a precocious young sleuth with an off-beat sense of humor and an inquiring mind, accompanied by her eccentric family. It was written with genuine originality, and is an extraordinary maze of mystery and intrigue, that will leave you with glorious anticipation until the last pages.


Bradley starts us off during the beginning of a lazy and ordinary summer in 1950, when a series of inexplicable events strike Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. The de Luce's enjoyable mode of relaxed existence is interrupted when a dead jack snipe is found on the kitchen doorstep, with a rare postage stamp bizarrely impaled on its beak. Later that night, Flavia overhears her normally reserved and amicable father, arguing tempestuously with a stranger in is secluded study, and only mere hours later, finds a dying man in the cucumber patch. As she watches expectantly while he utters his last dying word, 'vale', she becomes both appalled and delighted. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.” To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections.


Flavia is a wonderful creation, and makes for a highly engaging and memorable heroine, and I so loved being in her company this week. Her brilliance and mature inquisitive nature come together to make her a perfectly dexterous sleuth, while her ongoing rivalry with her older sisters, and sufficient childish quirks, reminds us that she is still a somewhat normal eleven year old girl. For me, she is a mix of Harriet the Spy's curious and mischievous personality, as well as Harry Potter's Hermione Granger's perspicacious and resourceful tendencies. Flavia is quick-witted, speaking often with smilies and analogies, making her a relatable character for readers of any age.


The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie provides us with a richly imagined, and luscious new world. The descriptions of Bucksaw, the de Luce family, and their many friends and acquaintances are laid out effortlessly, and the ongoing clues and realizations keep you engaged and thinking from beginning to end. Bradley artfully includes historical trivia about science, music, and literature, and combined with a piercing depiction of class and society, are mixed perfectly together to provide a succulent and consuming novel.

It was easy to immerse myself in Flavia's world, and become ever so intrigued by the questions and mysteries at hand. Having only a week to read this book, I read it quick quickly, but I fear that I may have missed out on some of the joy of actively solving the puzzles alongside Flavia. As I mentioned earlier, I am fascinated with mysteries and riddles, and always strive to solve them, so I think next time I read a mystery book, I will take more time to carefully read and absorb all of the clues, giving myself the opportunity to come to my own conclusions about the outcome. And so lie's my tip for Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, read it carefully, and allow the information to sink in and work itself out. Enjoy the challenge of actually thinking while reading, rather than just skimming over the words to get to the end.