Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce murder mysteries really are a pleasure to read. I’ve gone on about him before and I’m thankful to my mother-in-law for introducing me to these books and keeping me in good supply!
Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d was one of my latest reads for my ‘book a month’ challenge and I find Alan Bradley rarely disappoints. This is a series of murder mysteries, set in about 1950 in the English countryside with a young girl genius as the detective. It is suitable balanced between macabre and comedic.
I have ALL the books, bar one
I have his books in a hard back collection (apart from the first pesky one which alludes me because I can’t find the right edition to match the rest), and they are not only beautiful to look at, they’re beautiful to read.
Sentence structures…no really
He has a way of structuring sentences that just seem to roll of the mind’s tongue. Okay, that was weird, but it’s the best description I can do. And he’s witty. I’m always a fan of wit and as his heroine is an 11 year-old girl sleuth, he’s really quite good at sometimes having her misunderstand something because she’s a child, but the reader know exactly what’s going on. Clever.
Did I know who did it?
I must say, I did not know who was responsible for this death. And I also must say, it was not for lack of trying. Generally I’m not necessarily one to try and figure out a murder mystery but rather just let it take me along on a wonderful ride of clues and final reveal. However, as I’ve read quite a few of his, I really did have it in my mind that I wanted to guess who had done it.
Perhaps I was silly, because I really didn’t get it, but I did feel a little like I didn’t get enough clues to guess for myself. It was as though I was a little blind-sided by the big reveal rather than getting the satisfying, ‘ahhhhhh, of course.’ in my mind.
That being said, I will always recommend Bradley’s books and this could well have been my brain at fault not his writing. To be fair, I was in France at the time of reading and my brain was very much addled by the sheer amount of bread and cheese I was consuming.
Philippa Jane Keyworth 