Flavia De Luce Mysteries

★ ★ ★

Cin you were right.... This book was better than the 1st two, but I will stick to my belief that Bradley does not have the voice of an 11-year old girl.... He's so "affected", but now I can ignore that.

Flaiva (11 yr-old girl) is a chemistry wizard enamored of poisons... She lives with a semi-absent father & two self-absorbed older sisters.

The house has been rented out during the christmas season to a film crew and the film's star has agreed to present a short scene from Romeo & Juliet as a benefit for the Parish Church's much needed new roof and most of the town has turned out to see it.

Unfortunately no one is able to leave after the performance (as they have been snowed in) so they all settle down for the night; that is except Flavia who decides to have a midnight chat w/ the star.

Upon nearing the star's room, Flavia hears an odd flapping sound; and when Flavia enters the room she finds the sound coming from a film projector with it's film run out & spinning on its reel. She also finds the star dead in her chair staring w/ dead eyes at the now blank screen dressed in the same costume she had been wearing in the film.....

It was interesting, not overly long..... not much detail to the procedures of the police but a good short story.

★ ★ ★★ Flavia goes to the "fete" and visits the Gypsy to have her fortune told, which results in disaster; for as the Gypsy tells Flavia that she sees her mother alive, Flavia jumps up, knocks over a candle & the Gypsy's tent burns to the ground.....

Flavia take it upon herself by making amends & takes the Gypsy back to the estate & allows her to camp (as once did Flavia's mother), thus making an odd friendship...

Later, when Flavia goes back to visit she finds the Gypsy dead, her skull bashed in, thus setting off a sting of events uncovering the past lies of the townspeople.

I didn't particularly like the characters, I especially do not like Flavia's oldest sister... Such a Nasty Pill.

I also do not understand why Bradley never has Flavia get older, I've read 3-4 now & she is still 11, which makes for a murder every 3-4 months!

Minus -★

Seriously? Obviously Bradley ran out of ideas & just patched this one together to continue the series, it was almost as if he either had a deadline to meet or was writing for his own self-serving-satisfaction.

The characters were an odious lot, the plot was disjointed and forced. Totally unbelievable and disconnected.

So then: Flavia has become the inheritor of her mother's entire estate (which for obvious reasons is not revealed to her sisters).... Flavia is also being forced to follow in her mother's footsteps in England's Secret Service and is sent to Canada to a Boarding School where she will be "finished".

Of course there is a murder: in Falvia's room a mummy is dislodged from the fireplace flue, with the skull of an ancient Egyptian....

Flavia sets out to discover who the mummy was as well as the murderer.

There are other problems, missing girls, an acquitted poisoner for a chemistry teacher, the worship of her mother, secret societies, and Rules.....

Sadly this book could have been so very much more if Bradley had taken more time.....

★ ★ ★

Wow this was interesting & a sad story:

After being missing for 10 years, Flavia's mother comes home to be laid to rest after being found murdered...

At the railway station a young stranger gives Flavia a warning of pending danger for the "Gamekeeper", but then before she c an respond, he his pushed under the train and to his death.

Being the Nosy Parker that Flavia is, she decides to open the coffin in order to resurrect her mother (remember Flavia is a "mad scientist"). Although Flavia is interrupted she manages to find her mother's missing will and the name of her mother's murderer.

What I still do not like and find highly unbelievable: Flavia's voice, the fact that the family (except Flavia's sisters) are a part of England's Secret Service and Flavia is to immediately step into her mother's shoes, and the self-satisfying manner in which Bradley often writes.

★ ★

The church's organist has done a bunk, and Flavia's eldest sister "Feely" (Ophelia) has taken his place....

Something is wrong with the pipe organ and when Feely & Flavia go up to invetigate they find a bat....

Meanwhile the remains of the local saint are about to be disinterred and in doing so the body of the organist is found above the crypt....

It is really important that I like the characters and I find that more & more I detest Flavia's sisters, especially the eldest.... their cruelty could be well done away with.

★

The latest installment: So very confusing, the voice of a male pretending to be an 11-12 year old female child... just did not cut it.

Flavia arrives home (from an all-girls school) in Canada only to find her father ill w/ pneumonia and in the hospital.....

When she goes to visit the Vicar's wife, Flavia, is asked to deliver a note to the reclusive woodcarver only to find him hung upside down on his bedroom door & dead.

Upon investigating the scene, Flavia, finds that the woodcarver has a penchant for First Editions by a long dead author...

A WHOLE Lot of mindless chatter, little or no interaction between Flavia & Inspector Hewitt or her sisters... and I pretty much figured out what was really going on...

This is the newest in the series, but the last for me.