The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

I’m a bit late to the party honoring Flavia De Luce, that intrepid eleven year old chemist and solver of murder mysteries.  In fact, it’s quite possible that everyone who reads my blog has already read the first of the mysteries in which she appears, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  If so, please indulge my expression of how much I just plain old enjoyed this story.  The word that best describes my experience of reading this mystery is amusing.  It was great fun for me to meet Flavia, as annoying and aggravating as I might find her in real life, and be privy to all calisthenics of her very agile mind.  I even enjoyed the mystery part, so either my brain is getting better at remembering the little details so important to the genre, or this one was a bit easier to follow than most.  (Honestly, I hope it’s the former rather than the latter.  My brain could use some rejuvenizing!)  The fact that the mystery centers around something as “nerdy” and obscure as philately (stamp collecting) and a boys’ school in England was quite intriguing to me, and the little mini history lesson at the center of the story is a definite bonus.  What I love the most, though, is how Flavia goes into ecstasies over chemistry.  I was a nerdy teenager, and while I would’ve never voiced aloud my opinions about the beauties of biology or chemistry or literature (those were my favorites), I can certainly see where Flavia is coming from and chuckle over her eccentricity.  Here’s a short passage that illustrates her passion:

He unstoppered the glass, and in a few moments before he applied it to Father’s nostriles, I detected a familiar scent:  It was my old friend Ammon. Carb., Ammonium Carbonate, or, as I called it when we were alone together in the laboratory, Sal Volatile, or sometimes just plain Sal.  I knew that the “ammon” part of its name came from ammonia, which was named on account of its being first discovered not far from the shrine of the god Ammon in ancient Egypt, where it was found in camel’s urine.  And I knew that later, in London, a man after my own heart had patented a means by which smelling salts could be extracted from Patagonian guano.

Chemistry!  Chemistry!  How I love it!  (52-53)

Alan Bradley‘s style is just so enjoyable to me.  Flavia’s voice is perfect.  Here are a few more quotes that I found particularly entertaining:

Seed biscuits and milk!  I hated Mrs. Mullet’s [the cook’s] seed biscuits the way Saint Paul hated sin.  Perhaps even more so.  I wanted to clamber up onto the table, and with a sausage on the end of a fork as my scepter, shout in my best Laurence Olivier voice, “Will no one rid us of this turbulent pastry cook?” (49)

I was me.  I was Flavia.  And I loved myself, even if no one else did.  (74)

Communicating with Ned was like exchanging cabled messages with a slow reader in Mongolia.  (82)

And one more:

“What a sweet child you are.”  She beamed, slipping an extra horehound stick into the wrappings.  “If I had children of my own, I couldn’t hope to see them half so thoughtful or generous.” 

I gave her a partial smile and kept the rest of it for myself as she directed me to Miss Mountjoy’s house. (135)

That partial smile kept for herself is so very Flavia.  It was very refreshing to read this book, an adult story (though not much objectionable about it save, as I remember, a few British oaths here and there) told from a child’s perspective.  I’ve read several mixed reviews of these Flavia de Luce mysteries, with most of the complaints having to do either with the precocity of Flavia or her very strained relationship with her older sisters.  I don’t mind either one–I can suspend my disbelief on the first count, and the types of revenge Flavia exacts on her sisters (mostly involving chemistry or one of the sister’s would-be beaus) I find just the sort of thing that legends are made of.  I give Flavia de Luce and this first installment in her story, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a hearty Highly Recommended and hope that it’s sooner rather than later that I move onto the next novel, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag.  (Bantam, 2009)