Witchy Reviews

Something Sweet for You
By: Wanda Watkins, Witch-in-Chief
 

There's something about small, quaint towns, shrouded in mystery, that always manages to instantly draw me in.  Setting, after all, is a key element in any well-written mystery novel. Add in a pinch of poison, a few cold corpses, and just a hint of intrigue--and you have a killer novel! Alright, alright, all puns aside, Alan Bradley knows how to dish out a scrumptious plot in his Flavia de Luce mystery series.  After having a taste of his first de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, I was instantly hungry for more.  Perhaps even more beguiling than the setting itself is the precocious protagonist, eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce.  Her Cinderella relationship with her wicked sisters, adds humor and charm to an already engaging whodunit.  Everything about this first novel speaks classic mystery a la Agatha Christie, but its successors, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag and A Red Herring Without Mustard, leave me craving that sweetness which the first novel seemed to so effortlessly produce.  Nevertheless, I have fallen hopelessly in love with the charm of little Flavia de Luce and her own mystery, which Bradley has slowly begun to reveal in each subsequent novel.  His newest addition to the series, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, will be released November 1, 2011.  Bradley has won his own fair share of recognition for the series, including the coveted Agatha Award for Best First Novel (2009). If you're looking for a quirky mystery, with a side of humor and your fair-share of poisons, then give the Flavia de Luce series a try--it's something sweet you won't want to miss!

 
We give this series 4.5 out of 5 hats!