The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
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Winner of the 2007 Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family. The summer of 1950 hasn't offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around
… More »Winner of the 2007 Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family. The summer of 1950 hasn't offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home's abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own. But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia's attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: " I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life." Did the stranger die of poisoning? There was a piece missing from Mrs. Mullet's custard pie, and none of the de Luces would have dared to eat the awful thing. Or could he have been killed by the family's loyal handyman, Dogger... or by the Colonel himself! At that moment, Flavia commits herself to solving the crime -- even if it means keeping information from the village police, in order to protect her family. But then her father confesses to the crime, for the same reason, and it's up to Flavia to free him of suspicion. Only she has the ingenuity to follow the clues that reveal the victim's identity, and a conspiracy that reaches back into the de Luces' murky past. A thoroughly entertaining romp of a novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is inventive and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that transcends the macabre seriousness of its subject. From the Hardcover edition.
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Summaries
Add a Summaryvery good.....narrator and story teller is 11 years old and a budding chemist....nicely told
11 yr old Flavia de Luce murder mystery. 1st in a series
Flavia de Luce is an 11 yr. old chemistry whiz. She has two older sisters with whom she is at odds. Her father, a philatelist, is distant and unavailable and she is largely parented by the housekeeper and the gardener. She helps solve the murder of one of her father's school friends who is found dead in the garden.
An adult book but can be read by advanced younger readers. Main character is a young, strong female who finds herself in danger while investigating a mystery that arrived at her doorstep.
Quotes
Add a Quote"I was me. I was Flavia. And I loved myself, even if no one else did." - p 59
I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.
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Add a CommentMore proof that just because "everyone" likes a book it doesn't mean I will. I'm sure there are plenty of people who find Flavia charming, who loved the story, and who can't wait for the next book to come out. I'm not one of them. The only thing I enjoyed was...well...hm. Tough call. By the time I'd reached my 50 page "love it or leave it" test, I was more than ready to leave it.
Wonderful series! The young chemist Flavia will keep you entertained.
Really fantastic first novel of the series. I loved Flavia and her penchant for finding her way right to the middle of the mystery. What a smart little heroine Alan Bradley has created!
not bad but not as good as the reviews lead me to believe... found it hard to get into and frustrating while reading it... liked the protagonist but not as much as others... but enough to read the second one in the series (which I liked MUCH better)...
Very enjoyable. A perfect vacation read. I look forward to reading the other books in the series. The plucky and wry Flavia is a most appealing character.
A terrific, quick, amusing read. A great vacation read. Very enjoyable. Loved Flavia, the main character. She's young, bright, brave and curious. And her love of chemistry and in particular, poisons, is oddly endearing. Recommended.
I don't know if I didn't like this book because it took me so long to read (started it 3 times over more than a year), or if it took me a long time to read because I didn't like it. Regardless, I was disappointed. This book seemed to offer many of the trappings I enjoy: crime, weird details about miscellaneous things (here, chemistry), slang or period language, interesting characters, appealing binding. But it was also trite and cliche, too Deus-ex-machina throughout, violent towards a child, and either hard to follow or not forthcoming with important details. Some sentences made me rolls eyes, and things happened "suddenly" too often. Ramble: Why the title? The saying was referenced a few times, but never tied to the story. And who smuggles birds in pies, anyway? Wouldn't it be easier to hide it in a shoe? Or bring it in to the country live and dispense with it after? I really want to like this series, though, hence 2 stars instead of 1. Also, I think I'll read the next one, because the binding/cover keeps me hopeful.
Flavia is a young Agatha Christie - quite astute for her age and such knowledge and imagination! A great plot and I'm looking forward to reading the other four books! #2 is calling me now.
The characters are a self-consciously wacky, and, for the connoisseur of the classic whodunnit, the solution of the mystery is not particularly clever. Nevertheless, Flavia de Luce and co. are good company. Of interest to readers of Ngaio Marsh, Nancy Drew, or the Mitford girls.
No rating for this book. I can’t say it is awful as lots of people seem to just love it. However it is not to my taste. Too slow and too mild. If you like Agatha Cristie village crime books with her little old lady, then you will like this with a young girl. I am always looking for a new author to follow and I was so disappointed that this one is not to be…for me. I do think it should be classified as a Young Readers book.