The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie ~ Alan Bradley

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Genre: Adult Fiction/Mystery
Publisher: Bantam
416 pages
ISBN: 9780385343497
Source: Book store

I have put off reading this since before it was published. I think it came out right around the time I started blogging and I found out about it via IndieNext or something of the sort. I loved the cover, loved the genre but was, I hate to say it, a little bit turned off by such a young narrator. I thought, for some reason, even though it’s billed as an adult mystery,m that it would be a little bit childish.

Silly me, as usual, of course.

I was so very wrong.

I feel like this has been the case, a lot, lately. And really, how could I not enjoy such a fun story?

Flavia de Luce is anything but your typical eleven year old. She’s obsessed with chemistry, primarily poison. Until the events in the book, she’s mostly concerned with using her talents against her evil older sisters in the form of fabulous things like rash-inducing lipstick.

Vengeful cosmetics take a backseat to true crime investigations though, the day a dead bird shows up on the door step of the de Luce household. Of course, things become dark fast when later on, that night, a corpse is found in their yard. Flavia, in all of her young brilliance throws herself into solving the case of both occurrences, no matter the obstacles in her path.

Written in the voice of a very precocious eleven year old, the story has the advantages of both being able to tap into the mature prose of gifted kids and also the occasional campy, melodrama of plain old eleven year olds.

The story itself is nothing short of fabulous, well written and very intricate. It gets a little slow in the middle but it picks up quickly after, getting seriously thrilly for the big ending.

This is the first of my R.I.P. challenge offerings and what a wonderful place to start! I’m on to the next in the series, now, and hopefully it will be as delightful as this was.