The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (Alan Bradley)

Summer mysteries are well under way.  I've officially finished the second Flavia de Luce book mere minutes before writing this.  This is a wonderful series.  I can't wait to get my hands on book 3 (A Red Herring Without Mustard).  But, for now, let's just focus on book 2: The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag.  First, I have to say Mr. Bradley has the most interesting titles for books!

• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
• The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag
• Red Herring Without Mustard
• I am Half-Sick of Shadows
• Speaking from Among the Bones
• The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
• As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Not yet published)

I thought this book was delightfully unsettling.  What I like about this series (from the two books I've read) is that while the deaths are certainly unsettling, they are never graphic or disturbing.  This is a classic cozy mystery, where you can close the book at any time and go right to sleep, instead of staring up at the ceiling thinking about the grisly details.  While in book 1, Flavia, our precocious 11-year old chemist, finds a dying man in the garden, this time he falls right onto the stage during a puppet show being put on in the parish hall.  And there is a whole delicious list of characters and suspects.  Who would have killed Rupert Porson, the puppeteer?  Could it have been his pregnant traveling companion, tired of his abuse or his wandering eye?  Or was it the mad woman who lives in the forest, who shouted that the devil was dead when Rupert came crashing down onto the stage?  Or perhaps the German POW who lives on one of the local farms and has a bit of shared history with him?

 

It was a fun book.  Sure, it was perhaps not as good as the first one, but I really enjoyed it.  I just love the main protagonist, Flavia.  She's clever, cute, and feels so original.  As a kid, I think this is the sort of person I would have loved to hang out with; she's smart and adventurous.  Plus, she's got a heart of gold (when she's not plotting revenge on her sisters, who can be rather cruel to her).

 

I feel like there is more that I should be saying about this book, but I'm afraid if I do, I'll be giving away plot points.  And besides, all my gushing about how wonderful Flavia is was taken care of in my previous post about this wonderful little detective.  As for my next read, I think I'll be deviating from the mysteries yet again.  I'm currently also reading the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, and once I get a few more of those under my belt, I'll be writing up a post about the series (or at least a small portion of the series.  There are literally 40 books so far.  I've read 2.)

 

I've got a few other interesting books lined up.  Perhaps one of the most interesting is a little gift I received in the mail today from The Roomie, whom I have not been in contact with for months.  A book of library/librarian stories is pretty much the best thing ever to find sitting on the kitchen table after coming home from a particularly busy day at work.   I can't wait to start reading!  (Thanks, hun!)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Alan Bradley)

I'd like to say at this point that my summer reading has gotten off to a good start.  I've been out of school for about a week (give or take a day or two) and I'm already posting about my second summer mystery!  This one is a bit of a jump from the Father Brown mysteries.  Now, instead of a Roman Catholic priest, we have an aspiring chemist, who just happens to be an eleven year old girl with a passion for poison.  Her name is Flavia de Luce.

Life has not been super-kind to Flavia.  Her father has been emotionally distant since the death of her mother when Flavia was a baby, and her two older sisters are always ganging up on her.  (Not that she can't handle herself.  She gets back at them on more than one occasion).  Things start to get interesting for Miss Flavia, however, when a dead bird turns up on the doorstep with a postage stamp pinned to its beak.  This is followed up the next morning when Flavia finds a dying man in the cucumber patch.  But, what starts off as simply fascinating soon becomes personal when Flavia's father is charged with the murder.  Soon, she finds much more than she bargained for in this exciting story.

I have never been much for cozy mysteries, which is why I thought this would be a great summer reading assignment.  As far as I'm concerned, this topic is about as close to virgin soil as I'm going to get when it comes to reading materials.  Sure, I've read mysteries, but not many.  Perhaps I don't because of a couple simple reasons.  (1.) I hate being able to guess who the murderer is right off the bat.  Do I try and guess anyway?  Of course!  Half the fun of reading a mystery is to figure out who the murderer is, what's the motive, and how was the murder committed.  A lot of times I can guess.  And that's annoying.  (2.) Or, the murderer will be something stupid.  "I killed Mrs. Patterson because I wanted to be the head of the bake-sale committee for this year's PTA."  Huh.  Not much of a high-stakes crime here.  Just a stupid one.  This book avoided both of these pitfalls.  Not only was I not able to guess who the murderer was, but the motive and method were thought-out.  It was very good!

Another of this book's positive characteristics was the detective.  For such a grim sort of character (an 11 year old with a passion for poison!!) Flavia was incredibly likeable.   She was funny, candid, and fascinating.  Sometimes, when writing a mature child character, he or she does not sound realistic.  Mostly, you get the image of an adult when reading, or worse, the character either sounds creepy or fakey-fake fake.  So, of course, I was vaguely concerned that Flavia would turn out the same way.  I was pleasantly surprised.  She's smart, certainly.  In fact, remembering the awful struggle that high school chemistry was for me, I would even venture to say that Flavia might be smarter than most adults my age (and probably smarter than me).  But, at the same time, there is no doubt that she's a child.  She's simply a beautifully written, three-dimensional character.  Clever, but naive, Flavia is an impressive sample of a well-written character, and I can't get enough of her!  Good news is that there are at least six books out, and a seventh on the way for 2015.

On a bit of a tangent, I know I had some great supplementary materials for Father Brown.  Coincidentally, while there are no movies about Flavia out yet (as far as I'm aware), there is a huge stack of chemistry-related books lying on the floor of my bedroom.  I'll hopefully be posting about those soon.  It's entirely a coincidence that I have those.  I didn't even make the connection about Flavia being a chemist until early this morning.  Oh, and according to IMDB, there's a possible TV series in the works, as well.