From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1)

Alan Bradley

Start date: June 1, 2020

Finish date: June 30, 2020

Discussion: Group reads

Why we're reading this: The first in this popular series won the poll for our June group read.
[close] The first in this popular series won the poll for our June group read.

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What Members Thought

May 22, 2020 Susan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read this novel when it first came out and recall really enjoying it, so have no idea why I never continued with the series. Too many series on the go? Too many books to read? Whatever the reason, I delighted in this first novel and will definitely continue with the series this time round.

This is set in 1950, where eleven year old, Flavia de Luce, lives with her father and sisters, Ophelia, seventeen and Daphne, thirteen. Her father is a distant presence, who collects stamps and lives mostly I read this novel when it first came out and recall really enjoying it, so have no idea why I never continued with the series. Too many series on the go? Too many books to read? Whatever the reason, I delighted in this first novel and will definitely continue with the series this time round.

This is set in 1950, where eleven year old, Flavia de Luce, lives with her father and sisters, Ophelia, seventeen and Daphne, thirteen. Her father is a distant presence, who collects stamps and lives mostly in his study. Flavia's mother, Harriet, disappeared while mountaineering in Tibet and now the family live in genteel poverty; albeit in their ancestral family home of Buckshaw - complete with folly, island, gardens and garaged Rolls Royce. They have a cook and an old family retainer, 'Dogger,' who suffered trauma as a prisoner of war and who is the closest adult presence in Flavia's life. Flavia herself, left much to her own devices, enjoys chemistry and plotting revenge upon her sisters.

However, life changes when Flavia overhears an argument between her father and a stranger, in his study. That morning, she finds the stranger dead, in their cucumber frame, and eagerly begins to investigate the murder. This has more than just a sense of curiosity, when Flavia's father is suspected of the murder by the long-suffering, Inspector Hewitt.

Normally, I must admit that I dislike books which have children as central characters. However, the author has really taken a child and, as so often in novels, has made her so precocious that, in reality, she is almost an adult, but has a rather unique perspective. The whole mystery is charming and wonderfully written, as Flavia uncovers the crime, which involves delving into her father's past. As she visits old schoolmasters, and old schools, as well as questioning villagers and getting into a great deal of trouble, she has, not only, a more adult perspective, but a great deal more freedom than children these days. It reminded me somewhat of a more adult Enid Blyton novel - and I mean that as a great tribute, as I am largely a reader through devouring Blyton's books as a child. Great fun, well written, with interesting characters. ...more

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Jan 24, 2019 Lemar rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, 21st-century-fiction, 2000-s

I add my voice to the chorus of those charmed by the plucky 11 year-old heroine Flavia deLuce. Alan Bradley brings a historian’s big picture sensibility to the engaging story with passages like this description of the church’s stained glass windows in the small English country town,
“The glass, too, was glorious. Above the altar, morning sunlight washed in through the three windows whose stained glass had been poured in the Middle Ages by half-civilized semivagrant glassmakers who lived and caro ...more

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Jan 03, 2017 Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore rated it it was amazing

I’d been looking forward to reading this for a bit but was also sceptical from the reviews that I’d read as to how I’d like Flavia. Well, I needn’t have wondered for I took to her right from the start—I loved her ‘voice’ and her spunk though I must confess I didn’t much of the time picture her as an eleven-year old. I also loved all the chemistry and the books/literary references (in one of those weird coincidences, it mentioned Jane of Lantern Hill which I’d just been thinking about rereading). ...more

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Dec 26, 2024 Nisha Menon rated it liked it · review of another edition

I plowed through the book because my dear daughter gave me one of the sequels as a Christmas present and I made it my mission to read this one for context.

This has got to be the first book I've ever read where the detective is the most unlikable 11 year old ever (I thanked the Gods for giving me my daughter - and not Flavia - at the end of every chapter). I wager people who think she is delightfully precocious, will never survive a week with such a menace.

That said, this is also the first book ...more

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