Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Author: Alan Bradley

In case you haven’t met her already, allow me to introduce Flavia de Luce.  The third daughter of an impoverished British former army officer, she’s a delightful character who appeared fully formed in the first book of Alan Bradley’s series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  Now she’s back in Speaking from Among the Bones.

The de Luce family traces its roots back hundreds of years in England, but they have fallen on hard times.  The estate of Buckshaw, the ancestral home of Harriet de Luce, the girls’ late mother, is in arrears for back taxes that Colonel de Luce is unable to pay.  Harriet went missing, as the British expression goes, on a trek in the Himalayas shortly after Flavia was born twelve years ago.  Although Buckshaw is no longer the elegant country estate it once was, it’s the only home that Flavia and her two sisters, Daphne (Daffy) and Ophelia (Feely) have ever known, and the thought of having it taken away by Inland Revenue is casting a dark shadow over the family.

The village of Bishop’s Lacy, home to the de Luces, is preparing for the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of its patron holy man, St. Tancred.  Exactly why this should necessitate digging up his coffin and removing his bones is unclear, unless it is, as Daffy says to Flavia, to see if his body remains uncorrupted, if he has “the odor of sanctity.”  Whatever the reason, the Church of England authorities gave the vicar of St. Tancred permission to remove his coffin, but now they want to revoke that.   The vicar protests that plans have gone too far, but when the crypt is entered (and Flavia, of course, is present) to unearth the casket, the group finds the much more recent remains of the church’s organist, Chrispin Collicutt, who has been missing for several weeks.

Flavia, of course, wants to be in the midst of everything, reflecting that her past successes with local crimes should entitle her to assist the local police whether they want her help or not.  And her vast knowledge of poisons will come in handy, she is sure, in solving any and all crimes in the village, including that of the murder of Mr. Collicutt.  Astride her trusty bike, Gladys, there’s no stopping her.

Bishop’s Lacey is filled with fascinating characters.  There’s  the church’s vicar and his wife; Miss Tanty, a middle-aged member of the choir who suddenly fancies herself as a detective; Adam Sowerby, a friend of the colonel’s with a business card that identifies him as a horticulturist, flora-archaeologist, and investigator (the last under the somewhat misleading wording of “inquiries”); and the two remaining members of the once-grand Buckshaw staff:  Mrs. Mullet, cook and housekeeper; and Dogger, gardener and general handyman, formerly in the service with Colonel de Luce.

Alan Bradley has written the fifth novel in this delightful series with the same wit and verve as he did with the previous four.  You can read more about him at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Reads blog at her web site.

A Red Herring Without Mustard is the third novel in this series.  Flavia, a delightfully precocious eleven year old, lives in the  English countryside with her family in the 1950s, although given their lifestyle the book could have been set thirty years earlier.  Besides Flavia, the de Luce family consists of her father and her two older sisters, Ophelia (Feely) and Daphne (Daffy).  Harriet, the mother of the girls, died in a climbing accident in Tibet when Flavia was a toddler.

The de Luces live at Buckshaw, a magnificent estate, with a cook and a gardener/butler as staff.  However, due to ruinous taxes and the death of Harriet who died without leaving a will, the family’s resources are severely strained and the father may have to sell his beloved stamp collection (horrors) to pay the bills.  It appears to me that the father does nothing but buy stamps and admire them, and the three girls don’t seem to go to school, but I may have missed something that explained this in an earlier novel.

Feely and Daffy are incredibly mean to Flavia, who thus spends much of her time either cleverly paying them back with even more outrageous tricks or else hiding away in her chemistry laboratory in the east wing of the mansion.

The novel opens with Flavia having her fortune told by a Gypsy woman, Fenella Faa, at the church’s annual fair. When the fortune teller tells Flavia that she “sees” a woman on a mountain who is trying to come home, Flavia is certain that the woman the Gypsy sees is Harriet.  Frightened, she upsets a candle on the table in the Gypsy’s tent, starting a fire that destroys the tent.  Feeling guilty, Flavia allows Fenella to bring her horse and caravan to the Buckshaw estate for one night, deep in the woods so that Favia’s father won’t see it.

The next morning Flavia stops by to see Fenella and is horrified to find the woman covered with blood and barely breathing.  She runs to town and brings a doctor back with her to the encampment, and Fenella is taken to the local hospital.  Who could have done such a terrible thing?  No one even knew the Gypsy and her caravan were there.

Although the local police are immediately brought into the case, Flavia is certain she can solve the mystery on her own. Hasn’t she already helped solve two previous crimes?  And, after all, it was she who invited the woman to stay in the woods of the estate.  Guilt, responsibility, and curiosity combine to make Flavia believe that it’s up to her to find the person who brutalized Fenella and left her for dead.

The curious title of the novel is taken from a 16th-century book entitled A Looking Glasse, for London and Englande:  “…a cup of ale without a wench, why, alas, ’tis like an egg without salt or a red herring without mustard.”  Flavia is definitely the spice in this series, with just enough sugar in her mix to make her someone each reader will want to follow in future novels.  She will capture your interest and your heart.

You can read more about Alan Bradley at his web site.