Chemistry Prodigy Finds Stamps, Solves Decades-Old Murder Mystery

Sign me up as the newest member of the Flavia De Luce fan club!  I am so glad I finally got around to reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, that there are several more books in this series for me to read, and that the audiobook narrator is FANTASTIC.  That is what I'd call a win-win-win situation, my friends.

Flavia de Luce is a precocious 11-year-old in 1950 with a strong love for chemistry, particularly the chemistry of poisons.  She lives in a grand old English country house with her two older sisters, neither of whom really understand her, her father, who keeps quite aloof from everyone, and their devoted servant Dogger, from whom she's learned all sorts of important things, such as how to pick locks.  When not in her laboratory, Flavia likes to ride her trusty bike Gladys to the library and play pranks on her older sisters.

One day, a dead bird with a stamp on it shows up on Flavia's front door step.  Later that night, she sees her father arguing with a tall, red-haired man.  The next morning, the redhead is dead in the garden, and Flavia is delighted to have a mystery on her hands.


So really, the mystery part of this book probably isn't that great.  There's a lot of monologue to fill in the back story, and the whodunnit was fairly obvious even to me, who never tries to solve mysteries in novels before they are solved by the detective.  But seriously, this book is about so much more than the mystery.

What I LOVE about mystery series is when they have so much more going on than just the mystery.  That's why I fell in love with Marcus Didius Falco, who was dealing with the trials of trying to join the middle-class in Ancient Rome, why I loved Farthing, which had so much subtext about homosexuality and fascism, and why I generally don't like stand-alone mystery novels nearly as much as series that focus on a detective and that person's growth.

Flavia is one of those detectives.  She's growing up in a rapidly changing world - she lives in a beautiful old house that her family has owned for generations, but that is now too expensive to keep up.  Her father has become reclusive since the death of her mother years ago, and Dogger has "episodes" when he remembers his time as a POW during World War II.  She's a very smart person, but she doesn't have many outlets for all her genius.  And this is what makes the book so good!  You can tell when you read the book that there will be so many happenings on all of these fronts (and more!) as you continue the series.  I am thrilled to see what Flavia will do with the rest of her life (getting a PhD in Chemistry is high up on her list) and how she will grow as she begins to understand the context of everything going on around her - the class divide, the post-traumatic stress disorder, the politics, and all the family dynamics.  I am so excited for all of that.

And while there were times when I thought Flavia was a little too smart for an 11-year-old, most of the time, she's very realistic.  For example, she believes what people tell her, and doesn't often consider that they may be lying or covering up.  She also can get fixated on an idea and go down a path that may not exist.  She bickers with her sisters and is very forthright with everyone.  She doesn't really worry much about danger, and then when she does, she can become very imaginative and dramatic.  She's just a delightful person with whom to spend time, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of this series.