Thursday, December 2, 2010

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley


Product Description: From Dagger Award–winning and internationally bestselling author Alan Bradley comes this utterly beguiling mystery starring one of fiction’s most remarkable sleuths: Flavia de Luce, a dangerously brilliant eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders. This time, Flavia finds herself untangling two deaths—separated by time but linked by the unlikeliest of threads.

Flavia thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacy are over—and then Rupert Porson has an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. The beloved puppeteer has had his own strings sizzled, but who’d do such a thing and why? For Flavia, the questions are intriguing enough to make her put aside her chemistry experiments and schemes of vengeance against her insufferable big sisters. Astride Gladys, her trusty bicycle, Flavia sets out from the de Luces’ crumbling family mansion in search of Bishop’s Lacey’s deadliest secrets.

First line: I was lying dead in the churchyard.

My thoughts: I found this, the second Flavia de Luce novel, to be as charming as the first. I loved going with Flavia as she rode trusty Gladys around town searching for clues. I cheered for her with each new find. I felt sorry for her as her sisters tormented her and when she was wondering about her mother.Her character is developing nicely and I can't wait to read the next book to see how she grows. I especially like the way Bradley captured the time and place, 1950 in England. Reading the description of the puppet show here reminded me of the time I saw a puppet show in the early sixties at school. I recommend this book to anyone.

My rating:





Quote:
"On my Honor," I said, holding up three fingers in the Girl Guide salute. Although I had been chucked from that organization for insubordination (among other things,) I felt it was hardly necessary to share the gruesome details with Nialla.

Links:
about the book
Flavia's Fan club


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