The Nature of Things

This might be my favorite Flavia de Luce novel so far. I'm not sure it is the best; it may just be that I was in the mood for it. You know how it is when a book hits exactly the right spot at the right time. It makes for a very pleasurable reading experience. Flavia is now a teenager and an orphan. Her beloved father had died just six months previously after her mother, the sainted Harriet, had died when she was only a baby.  Harriet had left the family home, which had come down from her side of the family, to Flavia, the youngest of her three daughters. Now that her father is gone, a decision must be made as to what to do with that home. Flavia's bossy aunt thinks it should be sold. But it's the only home Flavia knows. How can she sell it? Besides, what would happen to the loyal family factotum, Dogger, and the family cook? And, of course, her sisters Feely (Ophelia) and Daffy (Daphne)? Well, Feely is about to marry her fiance, Dieter, so that's her sorted. Their we...

It wasn't actually a "brinded" cat that mew'd; it was a calico. But literary license is allowed, I suppose, since the writer seems to base all of his titles on nursery rhymes.  Flavia de Luce is Alan Bradley's charming heroine and I have enjoyed reading his tales about her from the beginning. When he published his first book in the series, he came through Houston on a book tour and my daughter, who was then a librarian with the Houston Public Library, met him and she recommended his book to me. I've looked forward to reading each entry in the series since then, but I had last visited with Flavia more than three years ago, in January 2015, when I read As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust . She was brought to mind again recently when I needed a less than serious distraction from the news of the day. In Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd , Flavia is now twelve years old and she has been sent home from the school in Canada to which her family had sent her, perhaps ...

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley My rating: 3 of 5 stars Prodigy chemist, twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce has been banished from her beloved Buckshaw in the village of Bishop's Lacey in the English countryside and sent, for her sins, to the wilds of Canada. Toronto, to be exact. It was thought to be time to send her to boarding school and so, most reluctantly, off she goes, across a dark and stormy North Atlantic, to become a student at Miss Bodycote's Female Academy. It is the alma mater of her late, sainted mother, Harriet, who is still revered at the school. She is to receive training in some unique subjects while a student there and perhaps to learn about a secret society called Nide. Torn from the company of all those that she loves and forced to leave her treasured bicycle, Gladys, behind, Flavia faces the bleak prospect of making her way in a place where she knows no one and no one knows her. And though she tries to keep the proverbial stiff upper lip, sh...

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley My rating: 3 of 5 stars Alan Bradley's eleven-year-old (almost twelve, as she constantly reminds us) budding chemist/detective, Flavia de Luce, is a charming creation in one of the most innovative of recent cozy mystery series. In the sixth entry of the series, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches , Flavia is still charming, but the plot seems a bit contrived and strained, and by halfway through the book, I just wanted to get it over with.  Overall, I still rather enjoyed it - if I could give it two-and-a-half stars, I would, but since I can't, I'll opt for the more generous three stars - but it definitely was not one of my favorites. There are two related mysteries for Flavia to solve this time. First, who pushed the man under the wheels of the moving train in the English village of Bishop's Lacey? Or was he pushed? Did he simply stumble and fall? Second, the reason that all the village had turned out at the train station t...

Alan Bradley's eleven-year-old, soon-to-be twelve-year-old, detective, the delightful Flavia de Luce is back in her fifth case and she is just as irrepressible as ever. The village of Bishop's Lacey is busily preparing to open the tomb of its patron saint, St. Tancred, and no one is more excited about the prospect of peering into the crypt than Flavia. She contrives to be present at the opening but the proceedings are cut short when Flavia discovers the body of the church organist, Mr. Collicutt. The man had been missing for several weeks and obviously has been dead for all that time. Almost as inexplicable as being found dead in a saint's tomb, Collicutt is wearing a gas mask! What does it all mean? Who would want to kill the church organist? And how did the murderer(s) transport him into a closed crypt? Flavia, of course, is determined to find out. And so we get to follow the young detective around the village as she interviews people without them knowing they are being i...

Flavia de Luce, Alan Bradley's wonderful eleven-year-old detective, is back again in a fourth installment of her adventures.  I Am Half-Sick of Shadows  may be my favorite so far. It is well-plotted, the characters are wonderfully drawn, and the action moves along at a snappy pace. It proved to be a fast read, too fast in fact. I didn't want it to end so soon.  Flavia and her two older sisters and sworn enemies live with their father, the Colonel, in a rambling wreck of an estate in rural England. They live in genteel poverty along with the wonderful Dogger, the Colonel's old war buddy and now jack-of-all-trades around the estate, and the cook whose cooking Flavia despises. The Colonel always struggles to keep the wolf from the door and his latest scheme for doing so is to lease the estate to a cinema company for the purpose of making a movie with the international movie star, Phyllis Wyvern. The company arrives just before Christmas and begins to set up to film the movie...