Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Toally captivating and brilliant, 9 Mar 2009
I am delighted to say that I found this book to be totally captivating and charming in every aspect. I certainly was not in the slightest put off by the odd American expression but was thoroughly engrossed and mesmerised by the utterly precocious and wonderful heroine 'Flavia de Luce '. A murder mystery set in 1950s rural England and an 11 year old sleuth who also happens to be a chemistry whizz and the kind of girl you would not want to make an enemy of. Refreshingly original, with a host of colourful characters and an ingenious plot involving valuable postage stamps, theft and murder.........and a bicycle named Gladys. This is in my opinion going to be one very sought after book and a series that will (if the first book is anything to go by) develop a cult following among kids and adults alike....bring on the next book and a movie please
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, 30 Jan 2009
Flavia de Luce is your typical precocious `almost eleven year old' all apart from the fact that she has found a dead snipe on the doorstep of her fathers crumbling country house's front doorstep. This isn't just any dead bird it seems to have been placed there as if in some form of a message to who ever finds it, it also has an incredibly rare stamp impaled on its beak. Flavia decides this is some magical mystery that she should investigate and does indeed to her finding something slightly more gruesome in the cucumber patch.
With her father at the centre of a murder investigation and her two spiteful sisters being only bothered with their own reflections and lives what is a precocious almost eleven year old meant to do than prove her fathers innocence and find the murderer. We are then taken along with Flavia as she goes about, on her bicycle named Gladys, interrogating people in the local village and following the clues and a few red herrings.
I loved the character of Flavia she completely stole the show for me, from her love of Gladys, to her scary knowledge of all things chemical and poisonous. Her sisters were brilliantly vile and her father wonderfully secretive. The prose of the novel is light and has a twist of black humour though sometimes the discussion of chemicals and also the explanations of stamps can be a bit much. I loved some of the strange villagers and their quirky silly names. Yes I guessed the ending and saw the villain of the piece coming a mile of but it didn't stop me reading to the very end, why would I have when I was having so much fun.
If you're expecting a thriller then you are getting the wrong book, if you're looking for something that's a mixture of murder, mystery, madness and mayhem then this is the perfect book for you.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A new favorite author, but the "mystery" needed some work., 21 Feb 2010
Alan Bradley has just skyrocketed onto my list of favorite authors. What a really engaging, interesting and heartwarming story. When I first began to notice all the talk about this book I had serious doubts about an 11 year old girl being the lead character in a story written for adults. Well, Flavia is as smart as a whip and a joy to read about. Is the book perfect? No. Is it really, really interesting to read? My answer to that is, yes.
The whole mystery begins when Flavia, her Father and their housekeeper Mrs. Mullet go to open the back door and find a dead jack snipe with a postage stamp impaled on it's beak lying on the doorstep. With the reaction from the Colonel, Flavia knows that something is seriously wrong and that is confirmed when she shamelessly eavesdrops on a conversation late that night. When she finds the stranger on the point of death in the cucumber patch the next morning it means that she has to try to find out who he was before the police find out about his argument with her father.
Flavia de Luce is one of those fictional characters you run across every so often who is written so well that you begin to think of them as real people. Flavia comes to life in the pages of this book. Author Alan Bradley has her do some things which seem much too mature for her 11 years of life and yet I have to admit that it is possible that some 11 year olds can do those things and think in that way. This whole family has some problems that make you want to take them aside individually and give them a good thorough talking to. Bradley amused me, he entertained me, his characters touched me. What he could not do in this first mystery was stump me. I don't know if he ever even wanted to hide the person responsible for the murder, it was that easy to solve. I will tell you this, "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" was compelling enough for me to know positively that I wanted to read The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Mystery. Luckily I have received that book through the Amazon Vine program so I can go straight on to the next exciting adventure for Flavia and her family.
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