Saturday, April 11, 2020

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

Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce is still basking in the glory of her first successful murder investigation when tragedy strikes again.  Rupert Porson, a famous children's entertainer, is found electrocuted on his puppet stage. Flavia instantly senses that it was not an accident and sets out to investigate all the possible culprits. As always, everyone is more than they seem and it will take all of Flavia's deductive powers, and diabolical chemistry, to bring the real perpetrator to justice.

This is the second of the Flavia de Luce mysteries, and was just as entertaining as the first.  Flavia is such a fun character who takes a grim delight in all things moribund, yet uses her considerable charm to wheedle information out of everyone in town.  I kind of see Flavia as a young Miss Marple.  Bradley is not quite as much a master of elucidating human behavior as Christie, but he comes close.  And like Christie, he is great at amassing a complex set of clues and then bringing them together in the end. I must remember that this series is another good one for stress relieving escapism. (2010, 364 p.)

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