Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley (Canada: British Columbia)

Title: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Author: Alan Bradley
Publication: 2009/Canada: Doubleday Canada
ISBN #: 978-0-385-66582-7
# of pages: 292
Discovered at mysteries in paradise
Read in paper format
Also available in e-book and audio formats
Link to author’s website: http://www.flaviadeluce.com/
 

A girl is tied up, gagged, and locked in a closet….by her older sisters. Such is our introduction to precocious eleven year old Flavia de Luce. She, Ophelia and Daphne wage a never-ending war of revenge and counter-revenge. The ace up Flavia’s sleeve is her in-depth knowledge of poisons and her well-equipped home chemistry lab and she sets to work with Ophelia’s lipstick to get even for the closet.

 Once done, Flavia heads for the kitchen where the housekeeper Mrs. Mullet is about to leave, after assuring Flavia’s father that lunch is ready.  As Mrs. Mullet opens the door, she shrieks on discovering a dead bird with a postage stamp impaled on its beak. But the reaction of Colonel de Luce is even stronger: he gasps, clutches at his throat and turns deadly pale.

This shakes Flavia profoundly; she has never seen her father so upset. She has difficulty falling asleep that evening and overhears angry voices in the middle of the night. She sneaks downstairs and spys her father arguing with a tall red haired man. Creeping back to bed before she gets caught, Flavia briefly falls asleep, only to wake up at dawn and find the red haired man dead in the vegetable patch. Could her father really be guilty of murder? Flavia sets out to discover the truth.

I had avoided this book for some time just because I didn’t like the title (still don’t). That was a mistake because this was a delightful book with a very different heroine. Flavia reminds me of Anne of Green Gables…with a twist: like Anne, precocious and curious to a fault, and (unlike Anne) vengeful, at least towards her sisters. It was great fun picturing her upstairs in her lab, rubbing her hands together and plotting poisonous plans. Her intrepid detecting gets her into some tight spots and although she seems quite grownup at times, her solutions for getting out of these spots come from a young girl’s mind. For once, the police officer is not incompetent, although perhaps at times, he is more tolerant of Flavia than many officers might be. I liked that the family is down on their luck, despite the big manor home, so Flavia isn’t just the rich little girl who everyone feels they have to help. And is there more to what happened to her mother Harriet? Can’t wait to read more of this series.                Rating: (^_°)       Intriguing

Although the story is set in 1950s England, the author was born in Ontario, worked in Saskatchewan and retired to British Columbia. Since he wrote the book in B.C., that is the province to which I have assigned it for the Canadian Book Challenge.  Bradley worked in media for many years, including a stint teaching Script Writing and Television Production. In addition to the (so far) six book Flavia series, he has written two other non-series books, one of which proposes that Sherlock Holmes was a woman (co-written with  Dr. William Sarjeant)…now added to my “To Be Read” pile!

Review: The Red House Mystery, A.A. Milne (England)

Title: The Red House Mystery
Author: A.A. Milne
Publication: 1922/UK: Methune
ISBN #: 978-0-09-952127-3
# of pages: ???
Discovered as a free book on my Kobo
Read in e-book format
Also available in paper format, audio CD, illustrated paperback, large print paperback
 

Pretty parlour-maid Audrey Stevens is having a bit of a gossip with her aunt, the cook-housekeeper, about their employer Mark Ablett and his black sheep brother Robert Ablett. None of the household had heard of this brother and now he was due any minute, back from Australia after more than 15 years’ absence. Robert soon arrives and Audrey shows him to the office. A few minutes later, she hears shots which she and the other staff quickly realize came from inside the house. They lock themselves together in a room just as someone starts banging on their door.

 

Help soon arrives in the form of Antony Gillingham. Gillingham got off the train here on a whim and when he learned his friend Bill Beverley was a guest at the Red House, he decided to visit him. He arrives to find a man pounding on a door. The man, Mark’s cousin and secretary-cum-companion, Matthew Cayley, is in a panic because he heard the shots too and can’t get into the office. He is worried about Mark’s safety so the two of them run outside to find another way to access the office. When they finally get into the room, they find Robert dead on the floor and Mark missing.

Shortly afterwards, the house guests – Bill Beverley (young man-around-town), Major Rumbold,  actress Ruth Norris, a painter’s widow Mrs. Calladine, and her daughter Betty – return from their golf game, closely followed by the police. Being curious and between jobs, Gillingham decides to investigate, with Bill acting as his “Dr. Watson”.

This is a classical British manor house mystery! Well-paced with good twists and turns, the book seems written with a light hand: by that, I mean, it has a humorous undertone, as if laughing at itself. The author specifically sets Gillingham and Beverley up as mirrors of Sherlock Holmes and Watson. At first, you wonder if Gillingham has the ability to detect; his jobs have consisted of a bit of this and that but not much of anything. He turns out to an excellent observer of both people and situations. The final scenes, especially Bill’s description, are quite suspenseful and the solution is very creative (although Raymond Chandler apparently felt it was implausible). It was a compelling book to read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book ends with an inviting sentence that suggests a sequel but this is the only mystery book the author wrote.     Rating: (^_°)       Intriguing

This is written by THE A.A. Milne, the author more famously known for his Winnie the Pooh books. Why a mystery book? In his dedication, he explained: “To John Vine Milne My Dear Father, Like all really nice people, you have a weakness for detective stories, and feel that there are not enough of them. So, after all that you have done for me, the least that I can do for you is to write you one. Here it is: with more gratitude and affection than I can well put down here.” A.A. M.    I wonder if his father enjoyed it – I certainly did!