In and amongst my 12 books in 12 months reading, I’ve been wallowing in Alan Bradley’s two Flavia de Luce mysteries.  My Mom, an inveterate reader of mysteries, handed off her copies so we could titter over this hilarious new mystery heroine.  Flavia is a 10 year old English girl who happens to be obsessed with chemistry and poison.  She lives with her terrible sisters, her distant filatelist father, and his shell-shocked butler/gardener in a crumbling country house.  The books are set in post-WWII Britain, where Flavia’s enthusiasm for science and her meddling in police affairs generally go unappreciated.

The first book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, centers on a murder in the deLuce’s garden.  The second, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, focuses on the strange death of a neighborhood boy five years earlier and on another mysterious death that takes place during the course of the story.   And I shall say no more, knowing how mystery readers love their actual mysteries.  Well, I will say that I loved the books, and particularly love their heroine.  I can’t wait for the next four.

You should watch these though, because they’re beautiful, and quite short, and spoil nothing.

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