The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

I have just finished reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie for the second time. It is one of the few books in my life that I have read twice.

Sweetness’ title comes from another book called “The Art of Cookery” by William King (1708). The full passage from Cookery is. “Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie, who cares for all the crinkling of the Pie?” Sweetness not only lives at the bottom of Mr. Bradley’s pie but throughout from cover to core to crust.

Mr. Bradley’s writing is like music to the reader. Verses from opening note to bridge, hook, refrain, and back again vibrate in the reader’s ear. Our protagonist is eleven year old Flavia de Luce. Ms. Flavia is intelligent, resourceful, brave, quick-to-the-wit, and will not let little things like age, shortness of height, nor obstructions by foes near, but not so dear, namely her two older sisters who threat this Cinderella like anything but a loving baby sis, to prevent her from accomplishing her goal.

Our society today would hamper Flavia’s crime solving gifts more than than the killer who bounds and gags her up in a grease pit in chapter twenty-four. This age we live in where Free Range Parents are arrested for allowing their children to walk a mile to the park to play would find Flavia locked-up next to her dear-ole-dad in the local hoosegow; luckily, she petals her bike, Gladys, from town to town in a time when children were allowed to do something other than play on an I-Pod, a time when they were allowed to go “outside” and lie in the grass.

Yes, Cinderella de Luce uses her magic wand, it this case her cerebral cortex, to solve the case of the corpse in the cucumber patch. Eat this custard pie from book flap to book flap and enjoy the sweetness that resides within.

Steven Tyler

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