The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery

Lovely, lovely writing with mesmerizing deep POV, the book reeled me in from page 1. The thing that kept teasing me was the question, why did an older, male writer choose an 11 year old chemistry savant for a protagonist in a book intended for adults? Then it struck me - for her invisibility. In this book, Flavia de Luce possesses something akin to a superpower, not in her precocious talents, but in her ability to move about her world with near invisibility. Her invisibility comes with drawbacks, of course, adding conflict and constraining her movements. The adults in her world pose obstacles to her ability to completely unleash her genius. Good thing for Flavia, who is, despite her genius, an 11 year old with acute sibling rivalry and access to poison. I’ve been late to this party, but I will be back to scarf up the rest of the series full of wonderful characters, the tight yet beautifully descriptive writing, and the subtlety with which the complex plot was revealed. (My first box set is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! Can’t wait.)

"You're a corker, Flavia. Really you are," said Mary one of characters in "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie." Flavia Sabina deLuce is also a brilliant eleven-year old who lives in her ancestral home, Buckshaw, with her father, and her two sisters, Ophelia, age 17, and Daphne, age 13. She has her own chemistry lab which she inherited from her Uncle Tar, short for Tarquin. Her sisters torment her and visit all sorts of miseries on her. She complains about her sisters. Yet, she often quotes Ophelia and admires her expertise on the piano, and can name every classical piece she plays. She even brags that her sister Daphne will become a writer when she grows up, and knows every book she is engrossed in at any given time. Flavia will never, ever admit it but she longs for the affection of her sisters who shun her.One morning at 4:00 AM, Flavia awoke and went down to the kitchen garden, and found a man in the cucumber patch dying. His last wordwas "vale," which is Latin from the verb, valeo, valere, which means "be well," and in this instance is to be translated as "farewell." (I am a retired teacher of Latin.) Flavia had to look up the meaning of the word. Flavia immediately ran upstairs to get Dogger, her father's factotum, as she calls him, to get him to help. She then called the police.This was her first encounter with Inspector Hewitt. He asked her to see about getting some tea for him and his men. He then said, "No need for you to come out here again." "What bloody cheek," thought Flavia as she stormed off to her room. It wasn't long before the Inspector arrested Flavia's father for the murder of the man in the cucumber patch.Flavia was determined to investigate and find out who the real murderer was. She went to the library to do some research and while thereasked the librarian, Miss Mountjoy some questions. Miss Mountjoy told her a story about her uncle, Mr. Twining, who was a housemaster at a boys' boarding school and who committed suicide because a valuable stamp was stolen from the headmaster. Miss Mountjoy claimed the boys killed her uncle, and one of the boys was Flavia's father. Flavia believes Mr. Twining's death is connected to the murder of the man who was found in the cucumber patch, and she was right.Flavia figured out who the murderer was. And when he accosted her and tied her up, and covered her head and stuffed her mouth with ahandkerchief and put her in the pit shed, she thought of Ophelia's advice, "If you're accosted by a man, kick him in the casanovas, and run like the blue blazes." Flavia thought this good advice, except she did not know where the casanovas were located. As brilliant as Flavia is, she is still an innocent eleven year old. All the while she was in the pit shed, she feared she was going to die. At one point, she lamented, "Nobody loved me and that was a fact." When two people came to her rescue, one of whom was Ophelia sobbing and saying, "We knew you were missing." Ophelia even kissed her.Finally, Flavia, explained to Inspector Hewitt how it happened and why it happened. Indeed, Flavia is a corker. She also is a needy girl.

This story takes place in the 1950s, and the protagonist is, like Bill Watterson's Calvin or Muriel Bradbury's Paloma, a child whose wit belies her years. In the tradition of Encyclopedia Brown and Cam Janson, Flavia de Luce is able to deduce what the adults often can't, and she solves the mystery quite handily, though murders make for a much heavier case than missing objects or faked hauntings.In spite of the seriousness of the crime in question, the book stays well within the realm of tween-friendly reading, aside from some difficult language and the chemistry-related inserts that are esoteric but crucial to both Flavia's personality and, as one might surmise, her approach towards the task at hand: discovering the reason behind the corpse in the cucumber garden.Like that of any good child prodigy, Flavia's voice is one laden with obscure, multisyllabic words, an acerbic cynicism, and a great deal of dry wit. Bradley avoids turning her into a mini-adult, however, by subtle reminders of her maturity level, which remains that of many an eleven-year-old. She fights with her sisters, albeit with more patience and planning than most children could manage, and generally fails to take their feelings into account when exacting revenge. She shades morality to suit her needs and considers herself to be wiser than those around her and immune to the rules that govern most in a shocking display of dishonesty that she uses both to collect clues and to save her own hide. One could hardly fault her for the latter.My thought, as I delved deeper into the novel, is that Flavia displays many of the traits of a budding sociopath, particularly with her obsession with poisons and the readiness with which she manipulates others. Still, she does ultimately shows that she has a sense of right and wrong, something real sociopaths lack. The tricks that she plays on Ophelia, while vicious, stop short of causing truly serious harm. The concern she expresses for their well-being later in the novel reveals that she does indeed care about her family, even if the sentiment only surfaces in dire straits; this redeemed her somewhat in my eyes. All the same, her fascination with arsenic and cyanide is a tad worrisome.A good portion of the story is spent with Flavia and Flavia alone, as she is generally left to her own devices as she bikes about the English countryside. I found this somewhat difficult to swallow. Though it is frequently mentioned that others were searching for her during her various absences, it does seem rather unlikely that an eleven-year-old would be so poorly looked after. The freedom with which she generates toxic compounds in her private laboratory boggles the mind, especially when her father was purported to take much delight in her brilliance and her scientific proclivities.The story itself is replete with red herrings, and it was refreshing to see that the heroine was thrown as readily as the reader. Some parts of the actual solution seem a bit much; however, the overall sequence of events makes sense if one can suspend disbelief over those points. I did feel validated when my original suspect of choice turned out to be correct for once. Sort of. I won't say any more in an effort to avoid spoiling the storyline, but suffice it to say that this is a book that both older children and adults can enjoy, and I look forward to reading about the further exploits of Flavia de Luce.Stimulated Outlet Book Reviews

Within a few pages, the phoniness of the backdrop, supposedly 1950s England, had me googling the author as I was convinced he is an American who has never visited the UK. He is actually Canadian, but the point still stands.The central character is a lying, manipulative, irritating 11 year old of the sort gullible adults seem to find cute but that kids in the same age group try to avoid. The other characters are either just preposterous or completely cardboard.The plot, such as it is, meanders at the pace of an arthritic snail. The police seem beyond incompetent.I am just over halfway through and have given this book 2 stars as the prose is well-written, if long-winded, and I can see it will appeal to readers who enjoy literature as opposed to fiction. However, I certainly won’t be reading any more in the series. It is becoming doubtful that I will actually manage to finish this one.

Credit where it’s due, Alan Bradley does a superb job in bringing the 1950s world of 11 year-old Flavia de Luce to life – the big house, the unpleasant sisters, the 'woman who does' and the freedom to pursue her own clandestine investigations all feel a little too easy and twee, but then he adds a new wrinkle with the distant and broken men that are her war-hero widower father and his war comrade and stalwart jack-of-all-trades Dogger. Without hammering it too hard down your neck, a kind of sadness pervades Flavia’s dealings with them and fills the picture out rather beautifully. The fertile ground of Bradley’s imagination, too, intriguingly drops a body into the cucumber patch and gives Flavia ample reason, opportunity and motivation to start poking her nose into things.However, as things progress it becomes apparently that Bradley is falling into first novel territory of using rather frugal schemes to forward his plot. Suddenly at the half-way point things grind to a halt for a three-chapter monologue that fills in all the backstory and motivates an entirely unmotivated sortie purely because the book needs a key piece of evidence to turn up (never mind that its existence is pushing the bounds of likelihood to previously-uncharted extremes...!). You also can’t help but spot the villain at their first appearance, and it takes out precocious genius a rather long time to twig to a central mystery that feels distractingly unlikely even as it is being unfurled in front of you, which makes the tortuous nature of the explanation at the end (seriously, we’ve figured most of this out already) more than a little overlong, redundant and irritating.There is some absolutely delightful language, both playful and touching, on display, and Bradley obviously has a lot of love for the world he has created. Fundamentally, there is a lot of sweetness at the bottom of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and I shall move on to the next book, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag (love these titles). It is far from perfect, but Alan Bradley should be congratulated in carving out a distinct niche in the crowded killing fields of modern crime fiction, and deserves your efforts and patience for that alone; if he gets better from here, he’s due to become very, very, very good indeed.

I am struggling between 4 and 5 stars for this book. The trouble comes because I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't quite my thing which is why I gave it 4 stars, but I was incredibly tempted to give it the full 5 because it was brilliantly written and anyone who is looking for a cosy crime book set in the 1950's is absolutely going to love this.The tone and voice of this book is beautiful. The narrator is a 11 year old girl who is the youngest sibling of 3 girls. She is intelligent and as a child, pushes boundaries and does her own thing as you would expect, but because of her intellect this gives her a unique view of the world which is a delight to read.The secondary characters were not left out when this book was written and the whole era itself feels like a character of it's own. It comes alive and you know and feel where you are when reading. There is one instance when Flavia meets a secondary character and her intelligence decides whether they can become friends or not and this is what she thinks: "Anyone who knew the word 'slattern' was worth cultivating as a friend."It is a wonderful book and one to be enjoyed and savoured. Enjoy meeting Flavia de Luce as this is the first in a series.

Flavia de Luce is certainly reminiscent of such classic English busy body amateur sleuths such as Miss Marple and Father Brown. While the core concept of an 11 year old girl who solves crime in 1950s rural England might sound like the description of a YA book from the same period, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is pleasurable read for adult.The story is told in first person narrative by Flavia herself and while I was initially concerned that I would find the character of a precocious chilld annoying her actions and thoughts are still often those of a child despite what she thinks! It is those elements of the story that really bring the character to life.At the time of writing, Bradley had never been to Brittan and his vision of the country was informed by old copies country life magazines that his British grandparents had and this is evidenced by the very idyllic version of 1950s England the de Luce’s live in. While there is some realism in the specter of WWII and the financial hardship that hit many country estates in the post war years, we view the world from the eyes of a child who is only vaguely aware of such things and would much prefer to spend her time locked away in the chemistry lab set-up by one of her eccentric ancestors or riding around the countryside on her bicycleIf I had to be critical, the book does lack suspense for a whodunit, but makes up for it by with of charm and humour.So if you are expecting historical accuracy and gritty crime, Bishop's Lacey is not the place for you to visit.

I'm a school librarian and was introduced to this by a ten-year-old, who'd picked the first one up on a visit to America. I cringed when I started reading; it all reminded me too much of Lemony Snicket's books, which I find patronising and precious. I stuck with it, however, and am glad I did. Engaging and funny, this is not remotely patronising and my initial reluctance to embrace the self-consciously eccentric family set-up gave way to enjoyment of the story.Other reviewers have questioned whether these books could possibly appeal to children, so I thought it might be interesting for me to assure people that yes, they certainly do! Not your average child reader, but certainly the small handful of readers who (thank goodness) enjoy something sophisticated, challenging and out-of-the-ordinary. I have given them to children who love Agatha Christie - and also those who love Lemony Snicket, I have to admit!The odd Americanism ( 'baking soda' in England in 1950... NO! Baking powder, yes) was mildly irritating.