I wanted to enjoy this book, but didn't. The heroine, an eleven-year-old girl named Flavia, is precocious and smarter than just about all the grown-ups in her world. She's an aspiring chemist who takes it upon herself to solve the mystery of the dead man who appears in her garden one morning.

Unfortunately, Flavia is the only character with more than one dimension in the story, and also unfortunately, she is insufferable. I found it very hard to believe that Flavia's "voice" was supposed to be that of an eleven-year-old girl. She sounded more like an elderly man--which is, incidentally, the author's identity.

Add a lack-luster mystery, and you've got a disappointing book. There are better mysteries and better sleuths out there.

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Set in the English countryside near the village of Bishop's Lacey in 1950, eleven year old Flavia deLuce lives with two older sisters and her father, the family factotum Dogger and the part-time housekeeper and cook Mrs. Mullet at a decaying manor home called Buckshaw. Flavia's dad passes most of his time alone, collecting stamps and listening to music. Ophelia, the eldest sister, prides herself on her appearance, and then there's Daphne, who always has her nose stuck in a book. Flavia's mother died during a mountain-climbing trip in Tibet when Flavia was still very small, but her dad manages to hold the family together even though money is tight and the home needs major repairs. As the story opens, Mrs. Mullet discovers a dead bird with an antique stamp through its beak, and shortly thereafter, Flavia discovers a dying man in the garden. After all is said and done, Mr. deLuce is arrested, and Flavia's detective career begins in order to clear him.



What makes this story work is both the character of Flavia and the author's writing. It's often hard to remember sometimes that Flavia is only eleven, and the word precocious hardly begins to describe her. Because she's 11, people tend not to pay attention to her, and she's the most scheming little thing you can imagine. Her mind never stops working, she is as relentless as a pit bull when she's on to something, and she's brilliant -- she's a master of chemistry at her tender young age, and she sees all facets of the world around her in ways adults cannot. She has this wonderful gift of being able to make pretty much anyone tell her anything. At the same time, you get little glimpses into Flavia the little girl, such as when her sisters tease her, or when she thinks about her mother. As far as the author's writing, even though his main character is this precocious 11-year old girl, he still hangs on to the realities of post-war England. Dogger, for example, suffers what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder, after suffering through the atrocities of a POW camp. The family home, Buckshaw, once a beautiful and elegant manor, has seen better days. Bradley's characterizations are excellent, each person with his or her own voice and clearly-defined place in this story.And, most importantly, this story does not devolve into the realm of "cutesy" or sickeningly sweet at all. It's fun and yet at the same time, it's intelligent.


As far as the mystery goes, the whodunit is a bit transparent, but you really won't care because this book is so well written. You end up being engrossed in the world of Bishop's Lacey and in the deLuce family, and especially in Flavia, so while the core murder mystery is good, there's so much more going on that takes you over as a reader. I can highly recommend this book to anyone -- definitely one of my favorites for this reading year.

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I first tried to read this book by listening to it on audio. I found it irritating and decided I just did not particularly like the reader. Then I tried to read it in the ordinary way and realized I still could not spend the time. My main issue is with the supposed 11 year old protagonist. I love ten and eleven year olds - I am a teacher of fifth graders - and I know some extraordinarily intelligent ones - but I just found the thinking/verbal/literary style of Flavia de Luce completely unbelievable. I can accept unbelievable, I think, if something else draws me in....for me, nothing did.

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1950s England. Flavia de Luce is many things: an aspiring chemist (who happens to have her own very well-equipped laboratory), a younger sister you need to be careful of (revenge on her sister Ophelia takes the form of poison ivy lipstick), and a fledgling detective. Her first detective investigation begins when she finds a dying man in her garden and watches him breathe his last breath and hears his final words: "Vale!" Of course, Flavia has more than a passing interest in the case as her distant and remote father is arrested for the stranger's murder. As she flies around the town of Bishop Lacy on her trusty bike Gladys, Flavia manages to stay one step ahead of Inspector Hewitt, much to his irritation and bemusement. However, Flavia does almost too good of a job unraveling the mystery of the dead man in the garden when she uncovers a decades-old crime that may or may not be related. Coming face-to-face with the murderer at long last, Flavia finds herself in a bit of a jam that may be even too challenging for her precocious intellect.

Like so many precocious girl detectives before her, Flavia lives in a world of her own making. Like Kate in What Was Lost, she is free to go as she pleases. Her mother Harriet died in a mountaineering accident when she was a baby. After his wife's death, her father retreated into his obsession with stamps and barely pays his daughters any attention. Flavia's older sisters are more adversaries than friends. Perhaps her closest friend is Dogger, the gardener and war buddy of her father. Yet Dogger is a bit off due to his war experiences, and Flavia is forced to consider him as a suspect during her investigation.

I loved how Flavia just up and did whatever she wanted: from concocting chemical experiments in her lab to breaking and entering. Flavia is a wondrous character but perhaps a bit unbelievable. I cannot imagine a real 11-year-old being as well-informed and educated as Flavia. But really who cares? All I know is that I quite enjoyed my time in Flavia's company. She amused me and was as daring and adventurous as I wish I could have been at her age. This book was a delight from start to finish, and I for one will be along on her next adventure, which is due to be released on March 9.

Oh, and as far as the mystery goes, this is one of those books where the character is the main attraction rather than the mystery itself. I suspect it isn't that hard to figure out "who done it" but that isn't really the attraction of the book anyway. The star of this book (make no mistake about it for fear of being poisoned!) is Flavia herself.

An Excerpt

It was all Ophelia's fault. She was, after all, seventeen, and therefore expected to possess at least a modicum of the maturity she should come into as an adult. That she should gang up with Daphne, who was thirteen, simply wasn't fair. Their combined ages totaled thirty years. Thirty years!against my eleven. It was not only unsporting, it was downright rotten. And it simply screamed out for revenge.

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This book seemed to start with a bang, as the main character was tied up in a closet, working on escaping her captors. However, it turned out that it was merely a prank played by her two sisters. From that point on the book moved rather slowly, with lots of asides into random facts and thoughts. By about page 80 the mystery was finally starting to seem interesting. Unfortunately that was the same point that I couldn't stand to read about the main character any longer. She is an spiteful child who looks down on everyone around her and view them as things to mess with to see their reactions instead of actual people, and after several interactions in a row with new characters where she tells them hateful lies while trying to get the information she wants out of them, I decided I'd had enough. To be fair, she could be nice and considerate, but not often enough to outweigh her bad side for me.

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First Line: It was as black in the closet as old blood.

If you have an eleven-year-old sister whose passion is chemistry, it would not be wise to hogtie her and lock her in a closet. But if you're the older teenage sister whose own interests never stray far from your own appearance and romance, you may not realize that payback will be forthcoming... and a bit ugly.

Once Flavia picks the lock and clambers out of the closet, already plotting her revenge, we quickly learn that: it's the summer of 1950; the de Luce family lives in a huge ancestral pile called Buckshaw outside the village of Bishop's Lacy in England; Colonel de Luce seems to live for nothing but collecting postage stamps; and his three daughters are pretty much allowed to do as they please.

In Flavia's case, she spends a lot of time on her own in an ancestor's fully-equipped laboratory teaching herself all about poisons. (Just what you want every eleven-year-old to know about.) However, shortly after she escapes from the closet, strange things begin to occur. A dead bird with a postage stamp skewered on its beak is found on the kitchen doorstep. Then a very rude red-headed stranger has an argument with Colonel de Luce late at night, and mere hours later, Flavia trips over his dead body in the cucumber patch. Naturally Flavia's father is arrested for the murder, and the young girl is determined to discover the identity of the real killer.

I avoided reading this book for a while due to the avalanche of press it received when it was first published. I knew that I did want to give it a try, but the more a book is touted as the best thing since sliced bread, the more I hesitate to pick up my butter knife.

I did find the first-person narrative laugh-out-loud funny several times as Flavia described her adventures, and the mystery did have some meat on its bones so that it was not easily deduced. The characters in the surrounding small villages were quite well-done, too. However, Flavia's father and older sisters were too stereotyped-- and Flavia herself was a bit scary. Colonel de Luce needs to spend more time with his children and less time with his stamps. Flavia would welcome the attention, and it would keep her away from her Bunsen burners and lethal concoctions.

All in all, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie was, for me, a fun, light-hearted way to spend an afternoon, but I failed to fall completely under its spell.

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eh, this was entertaining enough, but not great. The main character/detective is a little girl who is written as an eccentric, precocious, Wednesday Addams type. Unfortunately, instead of being charmingly strange, she falls rather flat, and is too adult to be realistic. The author doesn't do the best job of conveying his era either...instead of reading like atmospheric historical fiction, it tends to scream "look, look, I did historical research!" All in all, it is pretty good, but I'm not going to rush out and get other books in this series.

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This was a fun story with a 11 year old British sleuth as the heroine. It had a wicked wittiness and read easily, like a YA novel. Her relationships were a bit pat. I almost expected the two sisters to be Cinderella's step-sisters. It was a nice mystery in that it presented you all the clues to do with what you could. I had it figured out slightly early, but I prefer that to the mysteries in which, at the last moment, the sleuth pulls out a odd bit of trivia that the readers couldn't possibly have known. (And yes, I'm a geek. I enjoyed the chemistry involved.) All the parts to the mystery were included and gave the reader the puzzle to solve. I will happily get the next Flavia de Luce mystery.

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I got this book through the Amazon vine program. People who have described this as Artemis Fowl as a chemist who solves mysteries are right on the mark. So far it looks like the author has at least two more books coming out in this series; one in 2010 and one in 2011. This was an enjoyable book overall.

Flavia is character that will put many people in mind of Artemis Fowl or Theodosia. She is a child genius that believes she knows it all; with this book though there are some marked differences from the aforementioned series. Flavia loves chemistry; and as I myself am a chemist this aspect of the book delighted me, it was great to read about the chemistry and how it was involved in the murder in the book. If anyone is really interested in the chemistry of poison: The Molecules of Murder is a very entertaining non-fiction read. Anyway, back to the book...some other differences are that the adults in this book are actually very intelligent and quite crafty in their own right; a change from the mentioned series where adults commonly act like buffoons. Also Flavia is a fairly believable character; she makes mistakes that a girl her age would make; even though she is a genius, she is not a genius at everything.

For the most part the book was well-written and fast-paced. The only problem I had with the book is that there were a ton of points were Flavia made poor assumptions and then she would figure it out and then the plot would twist in a different direction. This would have been okay if it had only happened once, but the plot twists (and Flavia's mistakes) were so numerous that it made the storyline a bit disjointed and at times a bit confusing to follow. I think this twisting also interrupted the flow of the story; which in general was good but towards the end of the book got kind of forced and contrived.

Overall it was an interesting read. I loved the that chemistry was involved in it. It would have been nice to have an afterword from the author stating how accurate all of the chemistry was and where he did his chemical research; but that is just the scientist in me speaking. I do not know if I will read any more books in this series though; Flavia did kind of get on my nerves with how often she was mistaken about things despite being a genius.

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Great book for a summer read! Great characters and descriptions

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This is a most unusual but delightfully reading mystery. Flavia de Luce is eleven years old, the youngest of three motherless daughters who live with their reculsuve father in the family home, Buckshaw. Flavia is fascinated by chemistry and all its elements and compounds to the point that she researches and experiments with any that are intriguing, especially, poisons. One evening she eavesdrops on a heated conversation her father is having with a strange red-haired man. Later that night she finds the man dying in the cucumber bed. He utters only one word, "Vale," as he dies. Because of the overheard conversation, she thinks her father murdered the man. So do the police and he is arrested. Meanwhile, Flavia investigates the crime, uncovering clue after clue and fact after fact that eventually link this murder to one that occurred when her father was in school. Finally, she is able to put the clues together and discerns who the murderer must be but he comprehends what she has learned and ties her up so he can search for a valuable stamp stolen from the king's collection. You must read the novel for yourself to see how Flavia solves the crime and survives her capture and the murderer is eventually captured. A most entertaining read.

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This was an interesting, though not very sophisticated, story about an 11 y/o girl. I think it should be considered a kids book.

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Flavia the main character of this book is in fact a very interesting eleven year old. Calling her precocious alone would not describe her adequately. She is definitely the truly one reason to keep a reader interested in this book as the "mystery" gets quite bogged down in places, and the circumstances become mundane. She has a very active imagination that stems from her interest in "chemistry". The book uses dry British wit and humor, and reading finally flows toward the end of the book.
I would not label it a page-turner, but it is an entertaining read.

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What a hoot. A precocious 11 year old chemist/sleuth, whose mail ambition seems to be getting even with her older sisters. A bicycle named Gladys. Plot twists for everyone. This is a keeper/

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For a book published in 2009 this novel is remarkably like the cozy mysteries Agatha Christie wrote in tone, voice, and the nature of the crime: a stranger is found dead at an English country estate and an amateur investigates the death leaving the police in the dust. What's different about this book is that the amateur is an 11-year-old prodigy chemist in pigtails.
From the very first page the author grabbed my interest by diving straight into the mystery of the victim in the closet and held me captive till the end by introducing mystery after mystery with one common denominator: they were all not at all what they seemed. A mystery novel is of course all about the mystery and this one kept me wondering for most of the book. I figured out the culprit not too long before Flavia did and so the story remained interesting while the investigation was going on.
A fun twist is that this is a historical novel and to me the author translated the tone of the time and place to the page very well. I enjoyed reading about listening to music on a gramophone, researching information in 20-year-old newspapers and figuring out details about people and places through old-fashioned face-to-face conversation. Things like that transported me to times long past and I relished the experience because of the contrast with our technology-saturated present. There is just something positively quaint about the concept of investigating the case of a body in the cucumber patch.
This novel is full of interesting characters and Flavia, the protagonist, is the most interesting of them all. Half the time she doesn't seem like an 11-year-old at all, what with her independence and prowess in chemistry, and sometimes it seemed too much, but then she'd do something utterly age-appropriate and I would see her as simply an extremely clever child once more. Dogger stole a few scenes but apart from that Flavia is the undeniable star of the show. An interesting twist to the cast is Flavia's mother, who just happens to have been dead for a decade. She is a prime example of a character who is never around but is more influential than most other characters in the story. I must admit, I'm more curious about the enigmatic Harriet than I am about even Dogger, who plays an important part in the investigation.
I am a big fan of mystery, especially the quaint kind, so even the ending being somewhat over the top didn't spoil the experience for me, and learning all sorts of things about chemistry didn't detract from the enjoyment either. All in all this is a fun novel that continued the pattern of pleasant reading experiences this year and I hope the trend continues.

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A little slow to get started, but about about halfway through the story picks up. Can't wait to read the next one.

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Thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it's well written, and one of the best in the cozy mystery series genre.

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Eh. I thought this book was lacking in emotional connection, and the attempted quirkiness of the main character fell flat and didn't seem to be consistent throughout her character. I really didn't care a whole lot for this story, but also wasn't horrendous.

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What captivated me in this book is the 12 year-old detective Flavia. She is delightful and much smarter than any 12 year-old should be. The action of the novel carries the reader at a steady pace,neither too frantically nor too slowly to the solution of the murder which is the main story of the book. It is a very happy little read that can be enjoyed by any reader who likes a nice English country mystery. Well written too which makes the experience all the more delightful.

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this is a fun book. the main character reminds me of Nancy Drew- the sleuth, but with the personality of Pippi Longstocking. She sets out to solve a mystery on a bike she has named Gladys. My 13 year old daughter liked it as well. Clean enough for children to read, but fun enough for us adults.

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Sweetness is a delightful and fun murder mystery that draws you into the quirky life of 11 year-old Flavia de Luce.

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This book was very well written and loads of fun to read. The ladies in the book club all enjoyed it. I look forward to reading more adventures with Flavia.

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Witty and charming. Laugh out loud.

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Delightful characters - especially the inimitable Flavia. I couldn't put it down, then handed it to my 11-year-old grandson and HE couldn't put it down!

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I LOVED it. Flavia's adversarial interaction with her older sisters is worth the purchase price alone. Many delightful moments had me laughing and thumping the book wishing I'd written that gem.

I've read an interview with the author where he stated that he found this character impatiently waking him in the morning to "get on with it." I can believe it. She's an incredibly brilliant imp that can usually out think the adults around her. If she gets it wrong, she works it out until she gets it right.

I enjoyed the inventive point of view, the mystery, the setting and especially this special feisty protagonist. Definitely a book I could read again. Well done Flavia!

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An unusual mystery series, in that the main character is a precocious ll-yr. old girl with an affinity for chemistry, especially poisons. She's forever found with a dirty face and clothes, trying to evade her sisters who torture her every chance they get, and frustrating the police with her constant meddling. She still manages to come up with the answers and usually gets to the bad guy before they do. A fun read!

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It took me a couple of chapters to get into this book, but after that I really enjoyed it! Definitely a worthwhile read if you like mysteries.

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This is a delightful mystery starring an 11yr old funny and brilliant little girl. The author paints a realistic picture of the sibling interaction between Flavia and her two older sisters; Flavia's interest in chemistry and her curiosity about everything! Comments made in this book made me laugh out loud. Highly recommended!

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Good new author. I will read more in this group. Definitely.

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This was the November pick for my neighborhood book club and I didn't enjoy it. The British farce narrative just didn't work for me, it just got tiresome after a while.

Apart from a few humorous bits, I just didn't buy Flava de Luce as an 11-year-old chemical and detective prodigy. It didn't seem authentic, but rather forced and artificial.

This book just wasn't my cuppa.

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Very clever and very humorous, liked it just as much the second time around. I love Flavia who is both incredibly precocious and quite naive. I love all the little factoids about elements and poisons that she knows, and that she's getting so much of her information from really, really old books. Bradley does a great job describing scenes, and all the characters feel like they have life to them.

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I found this book totally delightful and I enjoy how Flavia torments her sisters. She is wise beyond her years and quite brilliant at solving murders. Far fetched-maybe so-but a wonderful read.

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Delightful! My husband and I are now reading the second of the series together. The main character is technically 11-years-old but few changes would need to be made for her to be much older.

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This is a murder mystery about a young, precocious English girl and her family and a man she finds dying in their garden. At first I wasnt sure if I was going to enjoy the story, but before I knew it, I was absorbed in all the interesting twists and turns that occurred.

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Good read! Cute story from a young persons viewpoint.

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I read Sweetness as a group read, it definitely isn't a book that I would pick up on my own accord.

Flavia is an 11 year old chemist and poison master who becomes an amateur sleuth when a dead bird with a stamp skewered on it's beak shows up on their doorstep. I can't decide how much I believe her, 11 seems young to be an expert chemist and to be cycling back and forth between the estate she lives on and the nearby village(s). I have seen 11-year old geniuses on Jeopardy's Kids week and I suppose the villages of 1950s England would have been safer than the streets today (not with a murderer on the loose, though!), but I think giving her a year or two would have made her just a bit more plausible.

I did enjoy her narration, however. She was quirky, energetic, and very amusing. She somewhat reminded me of Dr. House (from the TV show) in the way that a seemingly unrelated something would give her the idea that would solve the mystery.

When it comes to mysteries (which I don't read often) I much prefer the high-paced mystery/thriller. Sweetness was definitely not high-paced, the clues were spread out between slower-paced scenes. I think there was a bit of unnecessary stuffing and the book could have been shortened just a tad to help with the pacing.

All in all, a fun young character and a decent read, but nothing overly special

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An 11 year old girl growing up in 1950 England. Motherless, living with her father and two sisters, Flavia is a very unusual child. She is extremely interested in chemistry. When a stranger that she overhead arguing with her father the night before turns up dead in the garden, all clues lead to her father as the prime suspect. However, Flavia has other ideas, and is out to prove the police wrong. Her adventures are over-the-top as far as believability, but makes for an enjoyable read!

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Not my kind of story. A little too quirky. I won't be following the Flavia books.

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Loved this book. Flavia reminded me of myself at that age. I loved exploring and figuring out different puzzle and their solutions. Never did I have the puzzle that she did but wow what a good book. Highly recommend this book. Read it in about 3 days total.

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It took me a long time to get into this book, but I really liked the ending. However, I got tired of all the metaphors after a while.

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wonderful--funny and well-written; top of its genre

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I couldn't even get halfway through this book. A very unbelieveable book about an 11-year old girl who is not a typical 11 year-old girl. After trying for 3 weeks I gave up.

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quirky and difficult to believe story. An 11 year old girl would most likely not be allowed to live this life except in her imagination. I did not enjoy this book much and that will be the end of Flavia for me.

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