Reviews
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley is the second of the Flavia de Luce mysteries. Like The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Flavia puts her precocious mind to work to solve the a recent death and an older but mysterious death. It's 1950 and while television is catching on in London, it's only barely reached the villages. It certainly hasn't reached the de Luce family home, not with a father who insists that he and his daughter spend quality time listening to recordings of classic music. Flavia's description of Beethoven's Fifth is hilarious. So when a famous chlidren's television puppeteer and his assistant break down near the village cemetery, Flavia doesn't recognize Rupert Porson. Nor does she gush when he explains who he is and what he does. When his assistant cheerfully exclaims that she's Mother Goose, Flavia's dumbstruck. Flavia continues to be fascinated with death, chemistry and especially poisons. She still has dreams to poison her sisters. Meanwhile they continue to try to convince her that she's adopted. Those, though, who knew the departed Harriet de Luce, tell Flavia that she's the spitting image inside and out of her mother. I found the book to be an excellent follow up. I plan to continue with the series.
not quite as good as the first
Flavia de Luce is a precocious 11 year old whose pastimes include making poisons and solving mysteries! The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag is the second book in Bradley's series about his child detective, but make no mistake, these are not children's books. Flavia's operate's in an adult's world, though she's still a kid so you get some interesting observations and logic from her. In this book, a puppeteer and his assistant roll into town, causing all sorts of trouble. The puppeteer is murdered and Flavia must sort through gossip about the past to make sense of what happened... and solve the murder of a young boy from several years previous while she's at it! Hangman is definitely a stronger book than Bradley's first in the series. He seems to have settled into the setting and characters more, and the balance between Flavia's brilliance and how much she annoys readers has balanced out. The mystery is also less transparent than the first, and the difficulties of a child's perspective come into play with this one. Still an enormously fun series, I find myself quite drawn into Flavia's family and village, and I want to see what happens to all these oddball people in future books.
A decent mystery almost spoiled by too many asides, unnecessary explanations and ramblings.
Another fun romp about Bishop's Lacey with the indomitable and intelligent Flavia de Luce and her trusty bicycle Gladys. I loved how this is marked with a cold touch that the quaint first novel didn't: the death of a young boy, who was found hanging on the gallows in a dark wood, surfaces from the memory of a small town from years ago. This might be a mystery novel but Bradley does wonders with language, painting pictures caricatural one moment and earnestly moving the next. Incredible.
Yep, dangerously smart is right. Flavia de Luce remains one of my favorite detective-chemists. Actually, she may be the only detective-chemist I'm reading, but she is still fiercely intelligent and loyal and irrepressible. I love how she handles the incessant bullying of her two horrid older sisters with gentle-yet-uncomfortable poisons in their sweets, or in their lipsticks. And Flavia is only 11 years old. Looking forward to book 4 (I started with book 3, then went back to the first two). I love catching up with her and the mystery right before bed, Bradley's descriptions of the de Luce estate and the surrounding countryside, the eccentric British villagers and the stacks of crusty old newspapers in the local library, all add up to a wonderful fall escape. And I can't read a puppet theatre story without thinking of Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop. Definitely not for or about children.
The series continues as 11yo Flavia uses her wit and knowledge of science to solve criminal mysteries
Although I didn't love this second book in the series as much as the first, I still give it 5 stars. I find myself loving the setting and characters of these books, and I can't wait to read the others.
