From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust (Flavia de Luce, #7)

Alan Bradley

Start date: July 15, 2022

Finish date: August 7, 2022

Discussion: Buddy reads

Why we're reading this: Next book for all our Flavia fans.
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What Members Thought

Apr 11, 2015 Ann rated it really liked it

Flavia is back but not at Buckshaw. She has been "banished" to the other side of the Pond to Mrs. Bodycote's Female Academy in Toronto, Canada. Of course, on the very first night there, Flavia discovers a body stuffed up the chimney. And then the fun begins! I miss her interactions with her sisters and Dogger, but Flavia is coming into her own and is starting to grow up. The cast of characters is a mixed group: the shady doctor and his wife who escort her to her new school, the teacher who is a ...more

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May 08, 2022 David Bryant rated it it was ok

This was the sixth of the Flavia DeLuce stories that I have read, and the first that has left me disappointed and unsatisfied.
I suppose it was inevitable that one would disappoint me, since I had been so totally enchanted with the first one.
[SPOILER ALERT!!] And I suppose I should not have been too surprised that this story would be quite different from those that preceded it, because of the new setting and new cast of characters. That may have been a good part of the reason for my disappointm
This was the sixth of the Flavia DeLuce stories that I have read, and the first that has left me disappointed and unsatisfied.
I suppose it was inevitable that one would disappoint me, since I had been so totally enchanted with the first one.
[SPOILER ALERT!!] And I suppose I should not have been too surprised that this story would be quite different from those that preceded it, because of the new setting and new cast of characters. That may have been a good part of the reason for my disappointment. But – now that I have finished the book, I know that the “new setting” is apparently not the locus for the next few stories as I had expected it would be. With Flavia sent off to the same Canadian boarding school her mother had attended, apparently as part of her special training for her eventual adult role (as what? Some kind of special agent?), I had concluded for almost the entire book (383 of 389 pages!) that this would be the start of a whole series of books set at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy. That seemed both plausible and logical. The school itself lacked the charm of the DeLuce family home (Buckshaw) and the nearby village of Bishop’s Lacey. Some of the characters we meet do offer enticing possibilities for future plots, adventures, challenges, and crimes. But that is not to be! Unless this this book’s conclusion is itself a diversion and someday, we’ll find Flavia back in Toronto again.
While the story was unfolding, I was gradually becoming annoyed with it and tired of it. First, there was a whole new cast of characters, but we do not get enough time to know most of them, and the ones we do read most about seem shallow and do not behave consistently. Frankly, none of them seemed worth knowing better. Flavia gets away with all sorts of mischief and adventures more easily than was convincing. She never seems to go to class. She walks all over the headmistress and the other teachers. There was too little tension, even when Flavia was allegedly in some sort of danger, which evaporated altogether too quickly. The plot(s) were complex, overlapped in confusing ways, and then were unraveled quickly in just a few pages. It reminded me of the TV detective episodes that string you along for 50 minutes and then abruptly “solve” the crime and identify the murderer in the last 90 seconds, confusingly and ridiculously.
Another problem was that a large part of the text is Flavia’s stream of consciousness. This is somewhat inevitable given that the stories are told in the first person but became tedious in this book. Frankly, I grew tired of Flavia’s constant chatter at the reader. I missed the charming and engaging girl that we met in the first book! In this one, her confidence and humor became mostly boastfulness and smugness.
One detail that puzzled me was that Flavia complains that no one in her family writes to her, but she never writes to them, either! Some of her tedious stream of consciousness might have been usefully replaced by letters home that conveyed some of her adventures, fears, etc., and might have generated interesting replies.
I am certain that I will read Flavia again, but I may take a break before I do. I missed one, #5, so I need to go back to that. As I mentioned in my review of #6 (“The Dead in their Vaulted Arches”), that one provided major information on Claudia’s back-story and created the setting for subsequent books (or at least for this one, #7), so at least some of the books need to be read in order to provide the complete story arc.
I hope that the author has put more “spark” into the remaining stories and that this one was a low point. Or perhaps it just wasn’t my cup of tea. ...more

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Jul 02, 2022 Jill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: alan-bradley

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I loved Flavia's bravery and self reliance at starting a new school in a different country, but was appalled by how her family had rejected her. Her loneliness was heart-breaking. Although her knowledge and personality are well above the average of her age, she is still only a 12 year old. Her sisters have always been quite cruel to her, but she really loves her father, even though he is a very withdrawn person, a note from him would have gone a long way ...more

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