Perhaps I took too long to read A Red Herring Without Mustard. If I'd zipped through it on sunny Sunday afternoon, the rambling plot would have been a trifle to be indulged instead of endured. About two-thirds of the way in, brakes were put on the pace and the exposition became redundant.

There were heaps of elements that I did love, namely Flavia and her irascible, invincible spirit. Bradley loves this little girl and taking care to round out her precociousness with vulnerability. Flavia is taking on layers as a character as she begins to shed the innocence of childhood and enters the dark world of adolescence. She is becoming more self-aware and multi-dimensional. The settings of Buckshaw and Bishop's Lacey become more significant, offering greater delights and deeper tensions. The cloud hanging over Buckshaw grows as the family's fiduciary status weakens, and Flavia’s sisters' teasing borders on torture.

But for all her precociousness and savvy sleuthing, Flavia’s pigheaded blundering into crime scenes left me terrifically annoyed with Bradley. Flavia knows better than to traipse through blood, muck about with corpses, and smear her fingerprints all over murder weapons. Bradley does his heroine a great disservice in dumbing her down and creating comic book scenes of her escapades.

It is a challenge for the author to show more heart and soul in some of the secondary characters, because we see them only through Flavia’s eyes. Her father, Dogger, Inspector Hewitt, and Porcelain- those characters whom Flavia regards with sympathy or holds in awe- are given the most flesh on their bones.

It’s as if Bradley can’t commit to writing a good mystery, relying instead on his irresistible heroine to carry the day and for that, the whole construct suffers. I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: I’m not a great reader of mysteries, so the whodunit aspect isn’t a deal-breaker for me. But Good Golly, I still demand a good STORY. And if you are writing a mystery, well, silly is fine, but just don’t let me yawn. Herring got off to an enchanting and intriguing start, and promised to be much better than …the Hangman’s Bag, but the too-brief foray into Gypsy culture, the inexplicable tangent of the Hobbler sect, and the plopping in and pulling out of Fenella and Porcelain (character, not china) were as disappointing as hydroponic tomatoes- a pretty package hiding flavorless pulp. The weak story was my central gripe about book #2 and if anything, #3 was a greater disappointment, if only because it started out with such promise. I remain convinced that Flavia is worthy of better, and greater, challenges.